Steve Jobs on Flash
So I’ve been debating on if purchasing an iPad is right for us or not. I think it would be a great tool for my kids, who already love to play on my laptops. What has held me back is the inability to run flash on it. Playhouse Disney (the kids favorite site) is all flash based, as are a lot of the other sites that they like to visit.
So purchasing an iPad for now is out. Today Steve Jobs comes out with the following release on why Flash won’t be allowed on the Apple product lines going forward.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
Steve brings up 6 points that make a compelling arguement against why they are not letting flash on the iPhone, iPad, and iTouch. The primary point being the one below.
Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.
We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.
I have to disagree to a certain extent with some of those comments. If we didn’t allow third party libraries and development platforms some of the standards we have today wouldn’t be around. Is Apple really concerned with Adobe not allowing new creativity or are they trying to keep the mobile platform locked into Apple’s platform. Are they scared that Adobe would create a platform to compete with the Apple online store? Music, Video and Book profits lost? I think so, but that’s my personal opinion.