| 02/05/2010 |
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Steve Jobs has clarified why Apple does not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods, iPads. This hopefully clarifies all issues in mind of Apple product users, Apple critics and Adobe Flash fans.
Adobe recently pointed out that “Apple released a new draft of their iPhone developer program license which had the effect of restricting applications built with a number of technologies, including Unity, Titanium, MonoTouch, and Flash CS5″.
Then Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO revealed that they “have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices for both Flash Player and AIR. We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.”
Now Steve Jobs replies point wise why Apple will not support Flash. Here we quote a few excerpts from his statement -
- While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system…. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards.
- Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads.
- Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now.
- To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264….Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software.
- Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover.
- 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. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms.
Basically Steve Jobs wants to suggest that the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards where Flash falls short. 200,000 Apple Store Apps proves Flash isn’t necessary for developers to create rich applications and games and creating HTML5 tools is the future.
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This is pretty scary. Apple claims it only supports open standards but it’s closing off to flash makes no sense to me.
Flash is a close system, not an open standard, adobe owns the rights to it.
nice information…??so can Iphone or the others Apple product play application in flash extention ?
Meaningful use of HTML5 is at least two years away and full implementation won’t happen for another ten years. Meanwhile, consumers will toddle over to Android when they see that the same thing can be done for far less money and trouble in a less brown environment.
nice information…??so can Iphone or the others Apple product play application in flash extention ?
One thing I dont like about Steve’s reply is that he does not accept flash because it is not an open standard (adobe owns it and apple would probably have to pay money to use it) but they have adopted the video format h.264 for HTML5 which will cost apple money as it is not owned by them.
To me this is a tactical manuever by apple as other browsers i.e. Firefox will not adopt the format h.264 because it will cost them, thus people will have to go with a browser that does support it such as apples safari.
The real reason is that there are already many Flash applications available on the internet.
If flash is made available to iphones then every one will use those applications. This will be a total loss to the appstore.
Also creating apps on flash is a lot easier and many developers are already into flash development. So if flash were present in iphones they would use Flash SDK rather than learn a new SDK (Iphone SDK)