Kevin Lynch Interview at Web 2.0
Interview with Kevin Lynch at Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Covers Adobe, Flash, innovation, HTML 5, thoughts on the direction the web is moving, competition, and omniture. Highly recommended.
Mike Chambers
code = joy
Thanks for the link.
From my point of view, Apple is doing the same mistake as in the 80′s in thinking they are the best in the world and nothing can beat them. At that time they had the best user interface, Microsoft worked with them, copied it and sold it to the whole world then became this IT giant.
Today, on mobile device, iPhone OS is the top reference. Google partnered first with Apple, then competed with them and now makes Android opened to the whole world.
It may sound simplistic, but to me, there are a lot similarities and I don’t see Apple making it for the long run.
Steve Jobs was fired on the mid 80′s and Apple collapses.
I wonder how many more years he will remain at Apple regarding his age and health problems. Once left, it will be very hard for Apple to find someone to be able to didact what their users should listen, see and think.
Baz
6 May 10 at 7:29 am
I love Adobe. Adobe never kills any technology, rather they help other technologies to grow. Flash is always ahead of HTML, but Adobe’s move to create HTML5 authoring tools shows how open minded Adobe is and also they are so confident about flash. FLASH and HTML will always stay together. Thanks Mike.
venkatnarayanB
6 May 10 at 7:30 am
heheheh… “Adobe doesn’t judge what developers are releasing or their contents”
Joe
6 May 10 at 9:09 am
Thanks Mike, that was interesting.
rumori
6 May 10 at 11:08 am
Very well said, cool interview.
On a side note – that’s the worst video player I have seen.
Milan Orszagh
6 May 10 at 1:19 pm
A very welcomed fresh and serious interview and great talk. I hope this video serves as kind of an eyeopener to the swarm of Apple acolytes listening to the huge load of nonsense Steve Jobs babbles about when he is getting bored…
spacefrog
6 May 10 at 1:28 pm
Really good interview, Kevin provides such a balanced, rational perspective. Apple’s market lead right now is really making it tough for companies with a big investment in Flash. If some amazing Android-based devices start hitting the market, the dynamic will turn. Right now it’s a difficult and expensive position for Flash developers.
mturner
7 May 10 at 11:13 am
Great interview, very level headed and looking at the big-picture of what Apple is doing and what Adobe is doing.
SmartyP
7 May 10 at 1:36 pm
It’s very interesting to me how he notes that flash “technically” works so many times. I’m not really against flash if they can get it to run on a mobile without killing the battery or crashing the device but he’s cleverly dancing around the real issue of quality. Flash “technically” gives the same experience on all devices. That’s not good enough. As a matter of fact, that often times flat out sucks.
There are Applications that were made on PCs initially that “technically” worked “as well” on the Mac (*cough Quicken cough*) but the problem with that is that you cut off the innovation that comes with the other platform. There are things Macs do that PCs flat out don’t and vice versa. People who have grown familiar with their platform of choice will be upset when an app fails at the fundamental user experience of that platform.
These realities also exist with mobile devices. Quality is the single most game changing factor as to why the iPhone has been successful. I’ve compared blackberry apps that are “technically” the same as their iPhone counterparts that function magnitudes worse.
A “one-platform-builds-all” approach is always going to fall short of feeling fully native. That’s just the nature of the beast. And besides Adobe, how many other sanctioned Flash Development IDEs are there?
And for all the “opensource” people out there, please don’t forget these company’s have budgets to make. It’s really about the money not “openness”. The decisions they make are for the betterment of their business. That goes for Adobe and Apple. So really, it would make more sense for Adobe to bring value back to Dreamweaver instead of spending a lot of effort arguing Flash’s role on the web. Remember these are just 2 businesses competing for your dollar. Don’t get your idealism mixed up with their capitalism.
Zach
7 May 10 at 2:51 pm
@Zach
–
It’s very interesting to me how he notes that flash “technically” works so many times.
–
I believe what he is trying to emphasize is that Apple not allowing applications created with Flash on the iPhone is a business and not technical decision.
i.e. from a technical standpoint, we have shown that it will work. Apple has argued that they are not allowing them due to technical reasons.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
10 May 10 at 1:26 pm
Zach:
I don’t know what you mean by ‘sanctioned’, but there are several alternative IDE’s out there for Flash development. Personally I prefer FDT, and there’s also FlashDevelop and IntelliJ. I think there’s also a plugin for Visual Studio but I can’t remember the name.
Dave
11 May 10 at 2:44 pm