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Steve Jobs tells us how he really feels about Flash...

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

Steve wrote a letter that gives a really thorough rundown of his issues with Flash.

Betanews' take:
http://www.betanews.com/article/Steve-Jobs-Why-Flash-sucks/1272557127

I think Betanews misses some of the subtleties in what Steve is saying, but I essentially agree with their breakdown as well as many of the comments that follow. Steve is basically serenading us with a familiar - and deceptive - tune. It doesn't surprise me that Steve is being a bit misleading and deceptive; I expect it. But I have to wonder, if Adobe addressed most of these questions, would that change Steve's mind? I doubt it.

The real question for me is whether he's right, in the end. Whether not having Flash in the iDevices is better overall. Not just from a product sales and success standpoint, but from a practical perspective. Of course we'll probably never know what would happen if Flash were available in the iWhatever, at least not until and unless Flash actually wins, or evolves into something even more compelling that they decide to allow.

What we will see though is a competing platform with rapidly growing strength having a complete implementation of Flash, fairly soon. And as that platform matures and becomes a better and better direct competitor for Flash - and it will - then we'll be more and more able to directly compare the perceptions, reception, enjoyment, use, market share, etc. of these platforms, and hopefully determine to some degree the impact of Flash in that mix. Yes, I think Android will really tell us if Apple is making the right decision.

Update: Good old Joe Wilcox weighs in, and I sort of agree with him for once:
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Steve-Jobs-Thoughts-on-Flash-is-just-smoke/1272565882

- Oshyan

CleverCat:
So how would you rate this?

http://www.samsung.com/za/consumer/audio-video-camera-camcorder/camcorders/memory-cam/SMX-C10GP/MEA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=features

Tuxman:
The funny thing in his letter to Adobe is that you can replace Adobe with Apple and it still works.

Apple's products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Apple, and Apple has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Apple's products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Apple and available only from Apple. By almost any definition, OSX is a closed system.
--- End quote ---

Well...  :D

Stoic Joker:
We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.
--- End quote ---

(Completely Flash-less iPhones were banned at how many hacking conferences due to security (being swiss cheese) problems...?)

Did anybody else pee themselves laughing when they read this line?

Carol Haynes:
Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. 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.
--- End quote ---

Actually that is blatantly untrue - I have Flash CS3 on my computer BUT I also have applications from at least 3 other, independent software houses that also write Flash authoring software (XARA and AutoFX to name two).

Whilst Adobe is a closed proprietary company (as are most commercial software companies) that doesn't mean Flash is a closed system - there are lots of other comapnies producing Flash compatible authoring software.

I also think the mouse versus finger interface of PCs and touch sensitive screens is a bit disingenuous - Flash works fine on other finger pointing devices. If Jobs wants to build in artificial restraints into his operating systems he should admit it rather than blaming it as a limitation on Flash.

As for video decoding - why should the entire world recode videos just so Jobs customers can see them on an iPad? If he prefers hardware decsing to software why not add a hardware decoding system to his devices?

Whilst HTML5, CSS and JavaScript are open and standardised (although that is debateable when you look at how Javascript is implemented in different browsers) Jobs conveniently ignores the fact that HTML includes embedding commands etc. precisely to add content such as Flash.

Steve Jobs should be honest  - it is purely being done to lock out the competition - which is why they change developers licenses without warning and why they won't open iTunes to comptetion etc..

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