On 29 April 2010, Steve Jobs published "Thoughts on Flash", an open letter giving six reasons iPhones and iPads would not run Adobe's plugin. It changed how the web plays video.
Jobs argued that flash was proprietary, crashed Macs, had a poor security record, drained batteries, relied on mouse hovers touchscreens lack, and put a third-party layer between Apple and its developers.
Apple backed open web standards instead (HTML5, CSS, JavaScript) and H.264 video. Critics noted H.264 was patented too. It didn't matter. Adobe dropped mobile Flash in 2011, YouTube made HTML5 its default in 2015, and Adobe ended Flash support on 31 December 2020.
That left every site that wanted video on iPhones and iPads with a problem: play without a plugin, on an HTML5 video element that was new and inconsistent.
Video.js, a weekend experiment by Steve Heffernan at Zencoder, was one of the first soltuions.
Our upcoming film tells that story, and what happened in 2025, when Steve came back and Video.js started over.
Video.js: The Documentary is coming...
Trailer: Thursday 29 October at 11:30am PDT
Premieres Live on 5 November on CultRepo YT at 10:30am PST
@MuxHQ@videojs@heff@jondahl@mihar_22@luwes@sam_potts
@RajPrathush@unpkg@videojs Hey Prathush, video.js maintainer here ๐
Please use a versioned URL: https://t.co/lgv0kiBsgk
The latest version URLs like you were using assume the latest version - which is currently 10, not 8.
Feel free to open an issue if this doesn't work: https://t.co/ScKNwzzyqj
@mihar_22 True, looking back Iโd have just stuck with an AIO. It was the GPU that was loud for me though but I bet you can get AIO for them these days.
Apple finally decided it's my turn to fold a phone. So I spent the weekend seeing if I could rebuild Netflix's folded iPhone Duo player on the web.
This is Video.js 10 in Safari. Pretty close! ๐งต
Plyr has been one of the best-loved players on the web for years, and that's all Sam. We're lucky he brought that same care to Video.js 10.
Thank you @sam_potts, and welcome Plyr folks. You'll feel at home ๐ซถ
@jh3yy Way better than throwing it out and it's usually much easier unlike modern hardware that's deliberately unrepairable from companies claiming environmental credentials...
Friends ran for 10 seasons.
David Tennant was the 10th Doctor Who.
The Great Longneck Migration was the 10th Land Before Time.
VJS 10 is now GA. Smol, customizable, and plays nice with your agents so they can help you migrate like Littlefoot.
https://t.co/7hKrEfcHa0