mashables
What is Missing in Apples iBook Author? Adobe Flash
January 26, 2012 | 
Author Adobe Flash.
iBook Author got a lot of fan fair in the past month with many trial software runs. The video below shows iBook Author in action:
Steve Jobs has had a well deserved legacy of continuing top rank innovation. But Steve also had a darkside. He believed he could copy or steal anybody else`s ideas; but once they had been applied to Apple hardware or software they were Apple’s “magic”alone. Nowhere is this dark trait seen more tellingly than in Steve’s treatment of Adobe Flash.
In Walter Isaacson`s biography Steve traced the fault to 2003 when Adobe refused to comply with Steve`s request to develop a version of the newly rewritten Premier Pro video editor for the Mac. All sorts of reasons can be postulated for this refusal but Apples development of its own Mac-only competing top-end video editor, Final Cut Pro plus Apple`s GarageBand music editor and Apples Aperture as a photo editor all competing with key Adobe products inevitably played a part in the refusal. Also, Adobe’s top brass still had to swallow the bitter taste from a decade earlier when Apple`s Truetype copied Àdobe Type 1 font technology but Apple released Truetype to Adobe’s surprise as open and free software and in the process killed a lucrative font business for Adobe.
Fast forward to 2010 and Steve Jobs refusal to allow Adobe Flash Player to be run on not just iPhone but any iDevice. In an “Open Letter: Thoughts on Flash” Steve sought to justify his stance by raising 6 problems with Flash.
First, Flash ‘is 100% proprietary…Flash is a closed system’. Yet Flash player is free, available on more OS platforms and has more open APIs than Apple QuickTime, Windows Media Player and other competing media or animation players . Also Jobs ignores Adobe’s Open Screen Project and its standardizing work.
Steve wrote “that the loss of Flash Player was slight to iDevice users.” He cites the many Apple game apps made up for the loss of Flash games and the fact that Flash videos were replaced by .H264 videos. Steve fails to note that a)Flash is used on 47% of the 17,000 most popular websites and Flash animations not videos comprise more than half of Flash usage. Finally, millions of Flash-based websites built by Mac users were now unavailable to iDevice consumers.
Third, Steve trashes Flash security, reliability, and performance. “Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009″. What Steve fails to mention is that Apples own QuickTime had an even worse security record in 2009. And for the past 4 years Adobe’s Flash Player and Apple Quick time have had the same number of security advisories at Secunia ‘s respected security service. This despite the fact that Adobe Flash Player offers many more features , coding services, and platform support in comparison to Apple QuickTiime.
Steve cites bugs “We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. “ but fails to note Apple’s own QuickTime and its continuing buggy behavior.
“In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.” And then – “Fourth, there’s battery life.”These are the very worst of Steve’s Reality Distortions. Apple was late in delivering the Apple Accelerator APIs to Adobe and within a month of his notes publication and 2 months of delivery of the APIs from Apple , Flash Player was running on a variety of mobile devices plus matching Quicktime performance on the Mac for speed and battery life. See here, here, here, and summarized here for the real facts.
“Fifth, there’s Touch.Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers.” This objection is testament to how isolated and out of touch Steve was on the Flash Player state of the art. Within a month of Steve’s letter a new Flash Player was released with a complete set of touch capabilities.
“Sixth, the most important reason….Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps.” Steve baldly states his I-want-a-monopoly case.No customer choice[if Flash Player apps don't rate customers won't buy them] allowed. But there is definitely the added burden for software vendors and businesses of having to develop another set of code for their mobile apps. Steve offers up HTML5; but as Steve well knew, HTML5 is not ready in standards, features and performance for primetime animation and application development. Rather Steve will make the biased decision for his users [if they did not like Flash, they simply would not use - but use on Macs belies that]. But in order to enforce a closed, proprietary and non-cross platform application development – Adobe Flash, Java, and cross platform code generators are all banned on iOS.
And so here we have the Steve Jobs Darkside – willing to destroy the work and business of hundreds of thousands of Mac-based Flash developers to create his own Apple iOS monopoly. The FBI report on Jobs is closer to the truth than Isaacson’s biography- Smart, Tough, Dishonest.
Ye Editor also got to witness an iBook Author session and 8 things stood out about iBook Author:
1)It is simple and fairly easy to use given templates and iWorks-like interface;
2)Users can import text from some Office and most iWork apps including styling; but after that import options fall off notably;
3)Adding images, video, HTML5 snippets and widgets and aligning them is really easy [text and object flow around drag and drop operations] making for savvy chapter layouts;
4)It can turn out large iBooks but they are huge files about 1.3 GB for a 100 page, with 10 or so large “animated” illustrations;
5)it can be slowwww at times in design and creation particularly importing 3D objects and perfecting live effects;
6)it does not have advanced and compelling animation features familiar to Erain Swift3D [Mac, Win] , Toon Boom Animate [Mac, Win], SwishMax [Win], Anime Studio [Mac, Win], as well as Flash CS5.5 [Mac, Win] developers;
7)As usual of late from Apple, iBook Author is highly proprietary, with a very limited set of legal imports and also export possibilities;
8)It produces proprietary iBook 2 files which handcuff you to the Apple ecosystem.
As substitutes for Flash animation, iBook Author supports a smorgasbord of specialized widgets, HTML5 snippets, Collada 3D models and interactive quiz drop-ins none of which match the full range of features and options available in Flash. As for animation, Apple’s Quicktime is again found missing in action. This is ironic because QuickTime had many of the same or even worse battery-power, security-risk, and performance problems that Steve Jobs attributed to Adobe Flash. The result is that iBook Author has problems in performance, storage efficiency and the range and robustness of animation features which are routinely available in Flash.
Meanwhile HTML5 is still not a viable animation solution as Canvas, SVG, CSS and JavaScript all vie for small portions of the full Flash animation feature set. In sum, iBook Author is proof of the fact Apple simply does not have a replacement for Flash for its millions of Mac graphic artists and designers. Yet Apple’s case against Flash is highly suspect . iBook Author just underlines the case of deficient products being provided to loyal Mac graphic designers and developers when many products much better are available not just Adobe Flash but Toon Boom, Anime Studio, Erain Swift 3d among others.
Bottomline: Apple Owes Its Graphics Community a Viable Animation Tool
iBook Author reveals the huge gap in Apple’s software line-up. Having sunk Adobe Flash on dubious if not illegitimate grounds on the iOS platform and doing the same on Mac OS, Apple owes the Mac animation and graphics design community a viable alternative to Adobe Flash. Apple Quicktime is not that. HTML5 animation tools like Sencha Animator or Adobe’s own Edge [based on jQuery JavaScript] are not that. If Apple chooses to eliminate something of indisputable value in their software ecosystem, then they must replace it with something of equal value. To date, Apple has not. Perhaps a tiny chunk of the $100 Billion currently in Apples cash coffers could be devoted to that replacement.
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Sencha HTML5 Animator
Because of its HTML5 output, Ye Editor has been following Adobe’s HTML5 Animation tool, Edge, with two looks at the evolving preview edition. So it was a surprise when Sencha appeared in Mid-September with the first completed HTML5 based tool called Sencha Animator:
The Sencha IDE for Animator
At first glance Sencha Animator appears to be an Adobe Edge clone:
2)Same simple drawing tools – dont go to either one to do your basic animation drawings.
5)Same Align, Distribute, Arrange [drag and drop in the timeline list of elements in the case of Sencha] features.
7)Same easy-to-use Timeline Magnify/Shrink control.
8)Same emphasis on no programming and ease of use for Designers.
9)Both have Preview in IDE or browser.
10)Both have simple, complete HTML file export for ready to run animation.
But of course the two programs differ. Sencha Animator is out now in its first version and on Linux as well as Mac and Windows where as Adobe Edge is available only on Windows and Mac. Edge is still in beta with intro expected in early 2012.
a)Sencha is available now.
d)Sencha provides library function for copy and pasting frequently used objects/elements.
e)Sencha’s Objects/elements can be grouped/nested and the group animated.
e)Sencha’a big downside is that Sencha Animator works only in webkit browsers for now.
Click above to see a simple Sencha Animator example. Use CTL+U to see the underlying code used by Sencha.
2)Runs in all 5 major browsers now.
4)More versatile copy and paste options for objects/element including placing all the transitions/actions in novel ways.
5)All Objects are contained in Elements panel with color-shading used in the Timeline.
6)Timeline has useful control toggles for Auto-keyframe the Properties and Generate Smooth Transitions
7)Edge goes second and has promised more features for early 2012 final release.
Click above to see a simple Adobe Edge example. Use CTL+U to see the underlying code used by Adobe.
Both tools have taken the minimalist approach to drawing and layout. In the case of drawing tools, both have only squares and rounded rectangles/circles for shapes [no lines, stars, n-sided shapes or pen-drawnings]. In addition to this both tools allow images and text blocks to be entered and Sencha adds videos as well. So in either case, Graphic Designers will be creating most of their media assets elsewhere. Sencha Animator costs $199 with a thrty day trial download available here. And no price has yet been set for Adobe Edge but it can be used freely in the beta previews available here.
From a guts of the engine view, the two tools are interesting. Neither tool has used HTML5 Canvas or SVG capabilities. Adobe Edge uses jQuery for almost all of its runtime animation support[hence it runs in all the desktop browsers]. Sencha uses CSS3 animation features plus its own EXTjs JavaScript framework for controling scenes. Sencha implies this gives them an advanatge in the mobile deployment space – but this reviewer was not able to test that.
Finally, Sencha Animator itself is coded in Nokia’s Qt – hence its availability on a number of desktop and tablet platforms. Ye Editor promises to follow up on this as Nokia Qt is making some serious Open Source commitments. But just like Java and Flash, Steve Jobs banished Qt from iOS development [sewing the seeds for iDevices downfall??]. But no question – with Sencha Animator and Adobe Edge, HTML5 animation has taken a decided turn for the better. In sum , you can do serious HTML5 animations right now.
Preview: Appsbar for creating Apple iOS and Google Android Mobile Apps for FREE
Appsbar.com has a nifty capability – Appsbar allows users to create iPhone iOS apps and Google Android apps on the Web for free.Sound incredible – but as the screen shot shows below Appsbar provide a workspace, design templates and a wizard to guide users through all the step required to build a mobile app. Lets return to the question of Free. Appsbar at the time of writing appears to have no hidden fees, no premium features for a fee, no storage costs for your saved apps, no consulting services, no fees that ye Editor can detect.
However, there is a cost. If your app is accepted at either the Android App Store or the iPhone App Store your app will have a small footer devoted to ads which Appsbar provides and derives all the revenues from. That is how Appsbar makes money – they get all the ad revenues your App may generate. That also may explain why Appsbar does not provide any code view or even explain how and what code the Appsbar Wizard generates. So if you have any concerns, be sure to read the Appsbar terms and conditions here.
The Appsbar Wizard in action
The AppsBar wizard takes users through a four step process to create their mobile app.
The start page for the Appsbar Workspace
The Appsbar Wizard is easy to use with helpful hints scattered on each connected working page.
In the above example, users are guided along on how to set the various App properties. Note at the top of the screen are buttons for the four major steps that the wizard guides user through: Apps Properties, Design Styles, Content pages, and Publishing Check. It is important to note that no step is set in stone, users can comeback and change the properties as they see fit later on. Also note in the upper corner users can swith the view of the evolving app from iPhone to Android at the click of a button. Appsbar is automatically creating both an iPhone and an Android app. For this reason, ye Editor suspects most of the underlying code for the apps is in HTML5; but as yet there is no concrete proof.
Design Style/Properties and Content Pages/Properties
The next two wizard steps are critical to designing your app. The Design Properties allows:
In the Design Stling users set the color and styling for their app’a pages. One would like to set a unigue design for the app icon and button versus accordion menus; but on this version of Appbar those features are not yet available. However, setting and changing the stylings here are easy to do.
The core part of the Appsbar wizard is the creation of Content Pages.
Each template has a mix of these 14 core Content page types. These content pages can be extensively customized and provide a fair range capabilities for creating an informational or marketing app. To do database presentation, involved forms, or gaming – users will have to look toward app development tools like Sencha Mobile, Appcelerator , NetBeans or Android Eclipse.
The following screenshot shows customizing a Photo Gallery page:
As you can see the PhotoWorks Content provides ample opportunity to customize the look and layout of your photo gallery. Users can also customize the icon. There was one problem with the Photo Gallery page – there appeared to be no way to get the thumbnails to show undistorted. Also the preview of the Gallery working was less than encouraging – as seen below:
As you can see the problem is not just distortion but also blurriness. These problems continue when you preview any of the Gallery styles. So it appears Houston [uhhh...Deerfield Beach Florida]we may have a photo fidelity problem. Now this may be just a preview problem and the app will gen the images just fine. Unfortunately my App has 12 to 14 business days to clear the App approval process at iPhone and Android -if i does clear.
Notice what has happened here. The Developer is “Appsbar Tiffany” not ye Editor. So now one can understand why Appsbar takes all the pain of getting your App approved by Apple and Google – they have to in order to get the advertising revenues sent to them. So this is the win-win proposition – Appsbar provides a mobile development service so they get the ad revenues if any from your mobile App [if Google Adsense is any indicator, that revenue is quite variable somewhere between nada and a slow trickle]. In return, users get a mobile App and presence faster, easier and at much lower cost than to do it yourself or through an agency. You figure the value proposition for each case.
Summary
Appsbar provides a free. online mobile App development service that is indeed fast and easy to use. In less than 2 days one can have a seriously well designed and working mobile App developed. Then its 2-3 weeks waiting for Apple and/or Google to approve the app. There is a potential problem with the quality of the graphics/images, and the robustness of the forms based page. Ye Editor has simply not been able to test those as my App is still in approval limbo. Any user experience would be appreciated in the comments below. That is why this is called a “preview”. Developers will be chagrined because they do not get to see any source code. Users may be chagrined because after there app is submitted they cannot work on it or even preview it. And finally this situation raises the question – what if, like ye Editor, you plan to do version 2 and 3 of this mobile App. Can you take the existing approved app and modify that.
So here is our overall assessment. As a prototyping tool, Appsbar is pretty god as long as your App gets approved. It would be better to be able to preview it during and after the approval process – read only access to your mobile App. To developers, the return is even less – because there is no preview nor source code nor any API so you can add Appbar plugins. developers may want to take a look at Dreamweaver’s Media Query support, that old Appcelerator standby, Flash Air and any other cross platform mobile app developer that readers care to comment on below.
Muse-like Tools for Fast Website Development
Adobe’s new Muse website design tool has garnered attention as Adobe invades the website design market. The tool has some real attractive features but also some big gaps as seen in the preview here. So this post looks at two tools that have occupied the same space and their features. First, there is Xara Web Designer Premium 7 which has a powerful graphics engine, precise rendering and great templates. But like Muse Xara Web Designer is light on grids, and form support, plus database/server connectivity. See our review here for impressions on the earlier version.
Another website design tool worth considering is XSitePro which also has a strong templating system, a wide range of widgets, and a whole cartload full of customizing tools. Here is an overview:
Note the strong set of templates and WYSIWYG Design
What particularly caught our attention is the in-place editting. the many customizable regions on these templaes, and the WYSIWYG editing preview preview capability. Here is a rambling review of those capabilities in XSitePro:
This gives a good feel for what XSitePro is capable of [go here for more details].
Here is screen shot of the site created:
Go here to see the live SavvyShoppingUSA website.
Summary
There are already some very good Website Design and Creation tools available as rivals for Adobe Muse. As our coverage of Adobe Muse continues, there also will be more detailed comparisons with these two and some other website design and customization software that emphasize ease of use at a low cost. The trick is to get enough features and robust code generation in these web design systems. Also the availability of 3rd party templates and widgets is like ine iPhone and iPad model, an ever more attractive feature. So it will be very interesting to follow developments in this category of web development tool that caters to graphic designers and auotmated website generation. The race to the top is still wide open as missing features like forms/server connectivity, HTML5 graphics and mobile support get added to the products.
Adobe’s new Muse: Website Code Generation
Adobe has been given a death notice by Steve Jobs – improve or die with a little help from Cupertino. Adobe appears to be taking that message seriously with a rash of improvements to the Flash Player, the Flex+ Air development system, the new Edge HTML Animator, the more agile yearly update schedule for most of its Creative Series [but big probems linger on the graphics side there], etc. And now Adobe appears to be introducing its replacement for Dreamweaver – code named Muse, but yet to be branded but due out in 2012.
Here is Muse in its SiteMap planning mode of operation:
And here is why it is important. Start with a look see of a 6 page website developed in Muse.
Overview
Muse is a Web development systems that emphasizes Website planning and Graphics Design while generating all of the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding. Think of Muse as operating in the DTP mode of Adobe PageMaker or Quark Express for desktop publishing. So Muse allows designing not one but several Master pages that can be assigned [simple drag and drop operation] to any pages users add to a website. As well Muse has a good Overall Plan mode which allows for multiple Master layout designs that are easily edited and then changed.
So think of Muse as CSS-like stylesheets extended to HTML snippets+JavaScript widgets. One Master page style can have a tab panel and vertical menu and individual paragraph and text stylings and another master page can have horizontal menus with a more classic paragraph/text styling. Both can be used on one website. Most important , Muse both previews and generates all the HTML+CSS+JavaScript code that works in all five major browsers – Chrome, Firefox, IE9, Opera and Safari. Adobe has shown whiffs of Muse in its Contribute and InDesign products and Microsoft Front Page did the same but with proprietary, IE-only extensions.
Standards Used
Adobe is taking advantage of the uniform old, up-to HTML4+DOM2+CSS2+JavaScript 1.6 standards that pervades desktop Web Development now. It is committed to HTML5 as it generates code with HTML5 headers. But Adobe is also realistic – here are their words:
Today Muse is a great tool for creating websites with high quality visual design and no CMS integration. That will likely change as we add CMS integration and explore enabling creation of websites for mobile and tablets. Just like in the early days of Desktop Publishing when PageMaker could only create a small subset of all the possible typeset publications in the world, Muse today can only create a subset of all the possible websites. However, for a website in that subset, it’s a far more efficient tool than hand coding.
So Adobe is deliberately targeting a large subset of what can be done currently in a rapidly evolving Web Development space. See Whats Out below for more details. But be advised that though HTML5 container is generated there are only a few HTML5+CSS3 codings to be found in [no canvas, no SVg, no CSS Media Queries, no Web database, etc.
What Works Well?
The Plan and SiteMap approach is simple and currently working pretty well. User can set site wide standards for margins, padding, background color/icons, favicon, hyperlink styling [still short of desirable options here]. Then they can set several Master Page standards for character and paragraph styling; UI widgets for tabs, accordions and slideshows; color swatches available; header, footer and gutter sizing but curiously not hyperlink styling. Also there are no hyperling traces among the pages showing how the various Web pages collaborate or interact. However, Adobe InDesign users will feel comfortable with Muse because of its many InDesign like graphic conventions – most notably in-place editing of elements.
Muse has taken the the edit in-place approach versus the popular property list used in many devlopment IDEs like Adobe’s own Dreamweaver as seen in the screenshot to the left. This means the user can retype the name on a button directly or place an icon on a trigger in a slide show presentation. This approach is often faster than hunting down the property list item in say Dreamweaver or Eclipse.
Also the live in-place approach allows Muse to narrow the options that fit for an object or element rather than the ID+property list approach which has users guessing what property to choose and then what of many property values that apply.
Muse does have hidden menu options indicated by a small blue arrow at the right top edge of the widget or text block. Clicking on this blue object icon reveals the options that can be changed for the associated object or element. This works reasonably well until users start to deep deep embedding – like widgets within panels within page columns [see here] in which case Muse currently can get hopelessly lost among the <div> containers.
But on the other hand , there are a host of design features that appear to work well such as character and paragrapgh styles, smart placement guides for text and objects, dynamic resizing of the page bottom as more elements are added. Again, Adobe InDesign users will feel at home.
There are a several additional features that are easy to implement – images in the page background with all the options for tiling, pinning an object/element to a position on the page so it never scrolls, nad setting Anchor links - all are trivial in Muse. Even better Muse remembers in a dropdown list all the pages on site and link addresses used on a page – very helpful for repeated link usage.
How Does Muse Render?
One of my major complaints about Dreamweaver has been how badly it can do page previews - DW departs from WYSIWYG ever more. Muse is on a mixed footing. First, there is the beta question. Will Adobe fix some of the glaring errors as seen in the screen shot on the left. Ignoring these errors [but that is what has been done for many years in the case of Dreamweaver] – most text blocks and widgets are precisely rendered as designed.
But some menu configurations, added HTML blocks, plus the some of the Composition widgets[typically a slidebox in a tab or a Presentation widget in an accordion panel on the right page column] presented problems. This is not good.
Consider that for Graphic Designers used to InDesign or Quark Express rendering precision, WYSIWYG is the name of the game. These developers will not be happy if Muse’s preview and rendering descends to Dreamweaver TIPCE standard [This-Is Pretty-Close-Enough] of rendering. Currently, Microsoft with Expression Suite and Xara with Web Designer Pro deliver very good rendering results.
So Muse will be on the line to deliver very good rendering fidelity in both its Preview mode and in the 5 major browsers So far Muse shown improvements iover Dreamweaver’s preview capability. As for the browsers the results were somewhat mixed. From time to time, Muse web pages would deliver anomalous results as in the screenshot of Google Chrome page. In general, if Muse is to win the allegiance of graphics designers, it will have to deliver impeccable rendering of webpages as designed.
What is Missing?
Remember, Adobe has said that Muse is a subset of all the things that can be done in Web development. So the best approach is to list what is missing to gauge how much of a subset Muse is:
1)forms are nowhere to be found;
2)ditto for databases and connections using AJAX or other client to server APIs;
3)so no sign of tables or grids for displaying tabular data;
4)as noted Adobe is promising CMS capabilities but I suspect not in version 1.0 due out in early 2012;
5)limited use of HTML5 graphic capabilities like Canvas, SVG, or CSS3 animations;
6)limited use of HTML5 database, metadata, or local storage APIs;
7)limited connection to Adobe tools so far – only Photoshop and Fireworks for photo editing[contrast this with the vibrant Photoshop to HTML plugin industry with Medialabs Site Grinder 3 or Divine Elemente]. So this means such obvious Adobe tools such as InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash are just allowed connections through <objects> and <iframes>. Also such new Adobe Labs software such as Adobe Edge for HTML animations, the Adobe Widget Browser tool, and Adobe Wallaby are still on the outside looking in;
8)So far no site templates like Adobe Dreamweaver or Xara Web Designer Pro;
9)surprisingly few 3rdparty widgets like Facebook, PayPal, GoogleMap, etc;
10)no sign of a Muse API for 3rd party extensions/apps and add-ons.
With a David Letterman-long list of what is missing, it becomes obvious that Muse is no replacement for Dreamweaver. In fact, as it currently stands, it is not a replacement for Adobe’s group web editing tool Contribute. Yet when one sees the success of graphic-designer oriented tools like Xara Web Designer Pro and Photoshop Plugins Site Grinder, there is clearly a market for better Web Design tools.
Whither Goes Muse?
I suspect that Muse will improve in 3 ways before release. First, the rendering fidelity will be improved dramatically. Second, Muse will provide templates for various website designs and possibly character + paragraph styles. Third, Muse will provide more explicit and two-way connections to other Adobe software including Dreamweaver and Contribute. However, HTML5,forms+ tables and database connections plus CMS capaibilities will be on the outside awaiting Muse 1.5 or later.
So potential Muse users will have to ask – how does Muse fit? Clearly for prototyping and site design a robust Muse is very attractive. The code then could be turned over to Dreamweaver or NotePad++ or NetBeans for finishing work – and lots of it for IT and data intensive sites. Regeneration or modification of a sites overall look and styling in Muse would present an impedance mismatch when taken over to finishing tool especially if a Dreamweaver connection is cut+pasty.
However, when Muse adds a CMS capability – that is a new ballgame. Suddenly WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla – whichever is provided with the Muse connection gets a real bolt of energy. Adobe may go with its own proprietary CMS as the BusinesCatalyst connection seems to pave the way for. CMS capability means Muse becomes a major player particularly if Adobe adds mobile and tablet capabilities to Muse. So Muse presents great potential and is worth watch for Web developers in general and Graphics Designer especially.