Steve Jobs "Thoughts on Flash" - An Open Letter

Video comparison of the youtube Flash & HTML5 players. HTML use an average of half Flash's CPU %.

http://lucinity.com/share/html5flashvideo

The site uses the HTML video element, so if your browser isn't compatible, here's a YouTube link with lower resolution: http://youtube.com/watch?v=t4ogZJdnTaU

For almost a decade Flash was lightyears ahead of HTML, but we didn't abandon HTML, and raid HTML headquarters with pitchforks & barrels of hate? Of course not. It seems like you guys just need something to vent on, and maybe because Steve targeted Flash competition, it's become your whipping horse? For me it works just fine, and I like the things made with it. HTML5 is cool to btw, I'm not blind to that, I dig both.

Thoughts on Apple:

Bye-Bye!!

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

@Tamara

It's that attitude you, and certain Apple staff, are showing that worries me about the future of Apple.

It's like the 80s all over again when IBM introduced an open model that powered over Apple's closed model. The arrogance, and control can only go so far or else Apple will repeat it's mistakes and be marginalized again despite it's good merit. We need to relax, realize there's enough money to be made all around, and loosen up. Flash on the iPhone, and less app-restrictions, wouldn't spell doom for Apple (despite hurting a few peoples egos), but it sure would renew a lot of people's excitement with the platform instead of building public animosity that is spreading to non-tech consumers through avenues like John Stewart's Daily Show, LifeHacker, and others. Steve Jobs is going too far with this.

I really like what Apple does with UX & UI, and really hope we change course, lest history repeat itself. Android is already taking off now, is completely open, isn't locked into one provider, and will even have Flash Player in June.

OS Lucinity wrote:
Video comparison of the youtube Flash & HTML5 players. HTML use an average of half Flash's CPU %.

http://lucinity.com/share/html5flashvideo

That page doesn't seem to work in Firefox, Opera, or IE in Windows. Maybe it uses another Apple-only "open standard"?

Perhaps everyone in the world needs to go out and purchase an Apple computer in order to be compliant with Apple's "open" web standards? It's the same way with Mac OS X. If you want to really get the best results, you need to write your programs in Objective C. But if you want to get the best results on Windows, you can use whatever language you want -- C++, C#, VB, Java, etc. They all can be compiled and run on the .NET framework. As a developer, I really feel like Microsoft treats me with respect. It seems as if people at Microsoft really like developers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE

I don't work for Apple but I've been on these forums for years and seen childish posts where someone says they are never going to buy another Apple product for blah blah reason.

I tried a Droid today and I was very underimpressed. It was slow, unintuitive and the phone itself felt like a cheap piece of plastic.

Steve's comment about the Symantec report looks like it was pretty dishonest actually. It's on CNET, and there's quite shocker in it...

“Symantec documented 321 holes affecting browser plug-ins last year: 134 for ActiveX technologies, 84 for Java SE, 49 for Adobe Reader, 27 for QuickTime, 23 for Flash Player, and 4 for Firefox extensions. -CNET“

QuickTime ranked worse than Flash Player?

And since separate versions of Flash Player exist on both Windows & Mac, how do we know if the vulnerabilities even affected the Mac Flash Player, or only the Windows version? It really just seems like Steve's slandering with that comment.

He could just as easily have said, "Among Symantec's list of security vulnerabilities found in 2009, Adobe's Flash Player ranked second best, followed by our own QuickTime" but that doesn't make Flash seem nearly as terrible & dangerous as "Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009".

I certainly don't want Apple to abandon QuickTime, I love using it for video playback on my desktop! If Flash Player automatically updated like Safari does, then users would automatically get security updates in the background, and vulnerabilities would be even less of an issue. Google is doing this with Flash on Chrome. It ticks me off that Jobs ( and some of you ) care so much about beating up Flash as if OSX, Aperture, Logic, Safari, etc are perfect. This forum definitely shows that while they are beautifully skinned, they're not perfect. As much as I loved them, my iPhones have also ticked me off over the years for the same reasons you spit on Flash (crashed, been buggy, lost data, drained the battery insanely fast) and all without Flash.

I have both a Nexus & 2 iPhone now. I prefer the iPhone's physics because it's a little more responsive, but I like the openness on Android, Google's voice-input, and the widgets are freaking awesome. In the last 2 weeks I've been using the Nexus more than my iPhone, but Nexus doesn't have the Amazon Kindle app yet, which I love to read with, so I carry the iPhone when I'll be reading. Both phones are awesome, and its self-evident that iPhone can be a success without Flash, it's a shame to see Steve wasting time to slander Adobe & Flash. Let's just let it go play somewhere else peacefully and get on with our bad selves, WWDC is coming up, OS4 & 4G are going to rock. Live & let live = )