Steve Jobs "Thoughts on Flash" - An Open Letter

Finally a nice summary of what many of us already realized and have to argue with those that want Flash.

I thought that was well written and well thought out. I know the Flash lovers are going to be bashing it to pieces though.

It's about time, in my opinion, that Apple told Adobe to get onboard or get left behind.

100% agree with you guys, finally they would get why the os is getting better without waiting for none to follow, we would just have to wait like S. Jobs said to html to be all around the web, very clear and great explanation!!

Steve wrote:
We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash.

What His iNess did not write was that Falsch is also the number one reason Firefox crashes my Windows machine.

Flash is crashy, buggy, CPU-hogging, bandwidth-sucking, battery-killing junkware written primarily for advertisers who, seeking maximum exposure for their product, want to push their obnoxious content onto as many potential consumers as possible. As such Adobe has demonstrated utter disregard for the end user.

The ironic result is that I use free utilities that block Falsch content ( ClickToFlash for Safari, and Flashblock for Firefox), meaning these advertisers aren't even reaching their intended audience!

This makes no sense for anyone.

I would not want Falsch on anything I built either.

OK, I 'fess up, although I bought my first Mac in 1978, there was a period in the late 1990's when i went back to PC's, as they were required for my work. I jumped into adobe products big time, and using Flash was one of them. At one time one of my web sites was an advertisement for Flash. But, it was a constant headache (even then), but I believed it was the way of the future and hung in. Eventually circumstances changed and I returned to the fold in a big way.

Lesson I learned.... Flash was an interesting development on PC's (for a while). It is a flaky app and by the sounds of it is causing problems on PC's today. What Jobs has written is irresistibly coherent, logical and filled in some facts that i had suspected existed.

Adobe have always produced resource hungry products. They rarely seem to keep up with developments let alone get ahead of the game. With some faults, Apple does strive to stretch the boundaries and be innovative. Carrying Adobe on their back is like carrying a useless dead horse.

Good move Apple. As for your position Adobe. As Dylan wrote: ".....Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'."

It would be better if it was an honest article, but I'm thinking it is. Apple probably just doesn't want any competition with the iTunes business model. "Our apps, our music, our movies, our way or the highway" would've at least been honest, and I'd have appreciated it more.

There are a ton of responses that show the "mis-truths" in the article. Oh well.

http://jessewarden.com/2010/04/steve-jobs-on-flash-correcting-the-lies.html
http://www.adambanks.com/wordpress/thoughts-on-thoughts-on-flash/2506/
http://blog.leefernandes.com/?p=446
http://lifehacker.com/5324724/bad-apple-an-argument-against-buying-an-iphone

I own ( or have owned ) almost every Apple product there is, except for the iPad, iMac, & TV. And I just don't like that my spider sense is telling me that Apple's lying... I mean, Jobs implies Flash was one of the most vulnerable points for hackers, but doesn't mention that QuickTime was ranked even worse, or whether it was Flash on Mac, or Flash on Windows... Whatever, I'm probably going to keep being an apple loyalist, but I know a lot of very talented flash guys who do impressive work so I hear the other side that most of us are deaf to. cheers!

You are totally correct.

Check out my response:
http://www.seangw.com/wordpress/index.php/2010/04/apples-steve-jobs-thoughts-on- flash-and-my-response/

In summary, Apple just wants control. I feel Steve should have just said it.

The reasons he is giving are flimsy at best. Yes, there are technical hurdles, but they are fairly simple to address, and it sounds like Apple just wants us to believe they are suffering for "us".

I'm a windows guy, but have tons of Apple products. I believe Steve Jobs knows what he is doing, but I hate his rationale right now. I truly believe you should let end users decide.

We can all go out and buy an ... android. But who wants that?

Adobe CEO chimed in yesterday as well:
http://www.seangw.com/wordpress/index.php/2010/04/adobe-ceo-shantanu-narayen-res ponds-to-steve-jobs-thoughts-on-flash/

From the interview: "The technology problems that Mr. Jobs mentions in his essay are “really a smokescreen,” Mr. Narayan says."

I agree with his statement, that it was just a "smokescreen". I can't think of one of the reasons in Steve Jobs' writeup that couldn't easily be addressed, or is just total garbage.



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<Edited by Host>

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In terms of flash on Mac , I love the fact that the windows format are now backing apples view on flash thanks Microsoft

First, nice response!

Second, I didn't know advertising wasn't ok on linked blogs. I have removed ads from the 2 blog articles I linked to.

Now --

Open source, by definition, is what you said. The ideology behind open source is that everyone in the community participates, gets a choice, and has an influence on the final product. No tools are banned, no approach is deemed "unacceptable", as long as it works. Let developers use all tools at their disposal to perform their art. Apple likes to be open source here and there, and then throw up barbed wire around other things.

With reference to the App store, I was pointing out the irony in Steve demanding "Open Source", which the flash format is, while obviously working against the general ideologies of open source.

Because a new technology comes out, doesn't mean we HAVE to retool our previous work to work on the new technology. It's nice to be able to if we want to. I don't know why Steve, and yourself, think that if the iPad were to have Flash, all Flash site owners would have to upgrade their sites. Of course not. When the color TV came out, most shows were still in black and white. That's not an argument against color TV. When OS X came out, weren't there significant issues with OS 9 software? The same happened with Windows 64-bit, and 32-bit versions. Some developers chose to upgrade their software, others demanded running in various "safe" modes.

I agree, certain websites just won't work on that type of device, but it isn't a good reason to ban all other forms of the media. I'd have to say 90% of the sites I've built with Flash would be compatible with a touch screen Flash. I find it so frustrating that when I'm out, and I go to check out a menu for a restaurant, the menu is in flash and my iPhone won't even display anything. Anything is better than nothing.

The battery life argument you present is also hard to accept. Simply because some clueless users would blame Apple for their poor battery life when they have been using Flash based websites all day, no one else can have it? As it is now I have a game on my iPhone, Strategery, that I swear will burn down my iPhone batteries in about an hour ... maybe 2. That's worse than if we had Flash!

I won't get into the battery replacement argument. I do believe what Apple does is ... acceptable. I hate that we have to pay $90 to replace a battery (a new iPhone essentially), but I understand the design decisions involved.

User do have a choice, and if they want they can use another platform. I believe Adobe is announcing Flash on the DROID within the next month or 2.

Anyway -- been good forum sparring!

Thanks,
Sean

I believe Adobe is announcing Flash on the DROID within the next month or 2.

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

+In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. *Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010.* We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath.+

From Dean Hachamovitch - General Manager, Internet Explorer.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx

*The future of the web is HTML5.* Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only.

H.264 is an industry standard, with broad and strong hardware support.

Other codecs often come up in these discussions. *The distinction between the availability of source code and the ownership of the intellectual property in that available source code is critical.* *Today, intellectual property rights for H.264 are broadly available through a well-defined program managed by MPEG LA.* The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the press. Of course, developers can rely on the H.264 codec and hardware acceleration support of the underlying operating system, like Windows 7, without paying any additional royalty.