As a follow-up to our post on the lack of flash available for the iPhone and iPad, here's some info on what Steve Jobs has to say on the subject.
On the bottom left corner of the splash screen of apple.com is a button that says 'Thoughts on Flash'. It directs you to fairly long explanation by Jobs himself as to why Apple has decided not to allow flash developments on their products.
"...I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues..."
In a nutshell, Jobs believes that with new technologies such as html5 (and other stuff that really only makes sense to developers, not end-users) Adobe's Flash will eventually become phased out. According to the article, Flash is too slow, takes up too much memory for small devices such as the iPhone, and allows third-party developers to create stuff that simply doesn't always work right on a Mac or Apple product (I can see his point there; I've used Macs for 20 years and have found out the hard way that Adobe releases software that works on PCs months or even years before it works well on a Mac).
Apple's views on the use of Flash vs. newer technologies is valid. After all, we no longer use serial ports, floppy discs or tape drives, and web pages have grown from simple text with one or two clip art images to the complex photo, video, and interactive-rich sites we enjoy today. And all that happened in what, 15 years? Apple believes it's time to move ahead, and believes the future excludes the 10+ year-old Flash software.
So where does that leave Adobe? We're talking about the company who has created some of the most powerful photo, video, publishing and web editing software available. Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock have their own take on this:
"...As the founders of Adobe, we believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers. Freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves...We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web — the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time."
Flash (which was originally produced by Macromedia) has been a convenient plug-in for their users to create rich website experiences, and continues to get streamlined and more powerful every year. Obviously Adobe doesn't have any plans to phase out this investment just because Apple has their own views on the subject. After all, iPhones and iPads are popular, but like everything else they are being imitated. There are already iPhone-style devices available from all the major cell phone carriers. Soon dozens of manufacturers will offer iPad-similar devices. And if they can get them to run Flash without draining the batteries in half an hour, you can bet Adobe will be very happy to keep on supplying the software.
Read Steve Jobs' entire letter here, at apple.com.
Read Chuck Geschke and John Warnock's letter here, at adobe.com
by Christopher Pinto for Englehardt & Partners Automotive Advertising
