Flash-bashing: For how much longer?

Saturday 20 February 2010 - Filed under Tech Notes

In November 2009, I found Click to Flash and put an end to unwanted loading of Flash animations in Web browser windows, at least on my MacBook. Most of the time, Flash meant a waste of time, Internet bandwidth, and CPU power. It was also the number one (if not the only) cause of infuriating fan noise and, occasionally, crashes that lead to forced system restarts otherwise known as pressing the power button for however long it takes for the screen to go completely black. While I have certainly been happy about the solution, I thought I was just one of the cranky few, a small group of people who would choose a partly crippled screen over uncontrolled fireworks. So I was mildly surprised when I heard Apple CEO Steve Jobs (reportedly) bashed Adobe Flash and unequivocally declared that it won’t make its way into the iPhone, iPod, and iPad platforms, ever.

Report: Jobs disses Adobe Flash as ‘CPU hog’ (CNET):

People who were at a recent meeting Jobs had with some of the paper’s executives told the Gawker-owned site that Jobs dismissed Flash as “a CPU hog,” full of “security holes,” and “old technology” and would therefore not be including the technology on the iPad, or presumably, the iPhone.

… The vast majority of people he wants to buy his devices don’t know what Flash is, and if they do, they don’t care. They just want a device that works.

Steve Jobs to WSJ: ditch “dying” Flash technology (Ars Technica):

… He also referred to Flash as dying technology, likening not supporting Flash on the iPad to Apple dropping support for floppy drives, ditching legacy data ports, and replacing CCFL backlighting with LEDs.

Adobe has made efforts to address the concerns about performance on Mac OS X, noting that Flash 10.1 should offer significant improvements (an area we are investigating further). That isn’t likely to sway Apple, though, as Jobs recommends replacing Flash-based content with H.264 video, JavaScript, and other techniques. Such a move is doable, if not entirely “trivial” as Jobs suggested.

Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs (WIRED):

About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it.

… Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.

No one will be using Flash? That’s a pretty bold statement considering that 98 percent or thereabouts of all PC’s in the world have Flash Player installed today. Such a user base clearly cannot be made irrelevant overnight even if HTML5 or any other authoritative standard becomes mainstream. It would, however, be more accurate and realistic to say that no one will be using Flash in the world of smartphones and other mobile devices.

I absolutely agree that the Internet needs a standard that promises something better, more stable, and more secure than Flash (Flash is not a “standard”). But what Steve Jobs really has on the back of his mind is that there is no way Apple is going to allow Flash to create its own mini ecosystem in the value chain of Apple’s mobile applications. Ditto, says Microsoft, which announced that its upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform will not support Flash, either. The difference is that Apple is behind a yet-to-be-finalised open standard whereas Microsoft is pushing its own proprietary Silverlight that exists today.

To sum up:

• Apple owns a mobile platform but does not yet have a technology that can power rich media the way it wants, i.e. full control and no licensing fees.
• Microsoft has built a rich media technology for the PC but hasn’t delivered a mobile platform to put it on.
• Adobe has not been able to carry the dominance of Flash into the mobile market, where it needs its own platform to survive.
• Google will pursue all avenues one of which is building its own complete mobile ecosystem, and push the winner of the dogfight.

It is anybody’s game. That much I know.

2010-02-20  »  JK