Apple Chief Defends Position on Flash

CUPERTINO: Apple CEO Steve Jobs has posted an open letter, called Thoughts on Flash, outlining his reasons for keeping Adobe’s Flash platform off iPhones, iPods and most recently iPads.

Flash is the format of choice for video on the web, with most major video sites using the standard. Flash is also a popular format for advertising and games, as it allows for the easy creation of complex motion and animations.

Jobs’ argument for keeping Flash off his new devices, is detailed in six main points:

1. Openness: Flash is a proprietary product, which goes against Apple’s support for open web standards such as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.
2. The Full Web: In rebuttal to Adobe, the makers of Flash, he argues that keeping Flash off the devices does not limit the web experience. Many major players, including YouTube, are now offering their video content in the H264 format, which is playable on Apple devices. On Flash games, he states that there are over 50,000 game and entertainment titles in the iTunes App store, many of which are free.
3. Reliability: Jobs points out that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash.
4. Battery life: Flash video often requires software decoding, which uses twice as much battery life as hardware-decoded H264 video.
5. Touch: Flash was not designed with the iPhone operating system’s touch interface in mind. It was designed for the mouse-driven PC world. Functions like rollover images have no relevance in this new environment.
6. Flash as a third-party development tool: Jobs states that he wants developers building directly for the iPhone operating system, and not using third-party tools and compilers, such as Flash. He says this could harm innovation by slowing down the uptake by developers of new features as they are added to the iPhone OS.

In conclusion, Jobs stated: "Flash was created during the PC era—for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards—all areas where Flash falls short. The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games. New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind."

Jobs wrote his last open letter three years ago, Thoughts on Music, advocating DRM-free music. The record companies paid attention and today music purchased from iTunes can be played on any device. His pronouncement that Flash is an outmoded standard and that it is time for us to move on may prove equally prophetic.

Simon Weaver is the online director at World Screen.