{"id":547165,"date":"2010-04-29T13:17:49","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T17:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"tag:contentnext.com,2010-04-29:article\/419-steve-jobs-explains-flash-ban-calls-out-bff-adobe"},"modified":"2010-04-29T13:17:49","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T17:17:49","slug":"steve-jobs-defends-flash-ban-calls-out-former-bff-adobe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/547165","title":{"rendered":"Steve Jobs Defends Flash Ban, Calls Out Former BFF Adobe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Whether you’re a customer or a critic, Steve Jobs wants you to know once and for all why he does not allow Flash, made by his very old and dear friend Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE<\/a>), on iPhones, iPods and iPad. In a 1,671-word message<\/a> posted in Apple.com Hot News section. Jobs smacks down claims that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL<\/a>) is banning Flash for competitive reasons and that Apple is a closed system.<\/p>\n

The upshot: “Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn\u2019t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. … Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.” (Translation: nothing gets between us and our Hanes.) <\/p>\n

Some highlights:\n<\/p>\n

—Who’s really closed?<\/b>: “Adobe\u2019s Flash products are 100 percent proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe\u2019s 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.” Jobs admits Apple’s OS is proprietary but “Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript \u2013 all open standards. …  Apple even creates open standards for the web.” (Translation: it’s ok for Apple to be closed as long as we’re open about it.)<\/p>\n

—‘Full web’<\/b>: Jobs brushes off the complaint that Apple doesn’t allow access to the “full web” because some 75 percent of video is done in Flash. But Jobs points to YouTube’s availability on the i-devices; that’s roughly 40 percent of all web video and that most video is available in the “more modern” H.264 format. Tossing in a laundry list of sites with video that’s viewable, he insists “iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren\u2019t missing much video.” (Translation: so what if you see blue boxes instead of video a lot on my devices? You can see the video I think you should see.)<\/p>\n

True, you can’t play Flash games either. “Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.” (Translation: You don’t need those common Flash games when you have ours to play.)<\/p>\n

—Touch<\/b>:  Running Flash on the i-team wouldn’t add anything because it doesn’t take touch into account. Flash was designed for mice, not fingers. “Apple\u2019s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn\u2019t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?” (Translation: Don’t rehab, rebuild.)<\/p>\n

—Just say no to x-platform development<\/b>: Jobs goes into great detail why cross-platform development is bad and the kinds of problems it can cause by being beyond Apple’s control. “It is not Adobe\u2019s 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\u2019s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.” (Translation: Nobody puts Mac OS X in the corner.)<\/p>\n

Back to you, Adobe.<\/p>\n

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