Apple's (AAPL) Jobs Has No Love For Adobe's (ADBE) Flash
Judging by the comments made by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, there will be no Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) Flash on the iPhone, iPad or iPods anytime soon and he does not see any reason for there to ever be.
The lack of Flash capability has been a long standing customer complaint about the multimedia devices from Apple, but Jobs released a statement via the company’s official site pointing out a dearth of reason that an Apple/Flash marriage is improbable and irrelevant.
To start, Jobs went after Adobe Systems Inc. for saying the Apple is a closed system, when in fact he sees the maker of Flash as being closed.
"Adobe's Flash products are 100% proprietary," Jobs said. "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."
While Jobs admits that Apple has many proprietary products as well, he adds that the HTML5 web standard that ships with new devices from the company allows developers to create applications that span a wide range without the need for third-party plug-ins like Flash.
"HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member."
Next, Jobs attacks Adobe for saying that Apple's mobile products can only access a portion of the Internet, as 75 percent of video on the web is formatted in Flash. Jobs points out that nearly all of this video is available in the "more modern" H.264 format as well that is viewable on Apple devices.
"iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren't missing much video."
Security is also a concern for Apple when it comes to a potential partnership with Adobe, citing that Symantec recently said that Flash had one of the poorest security records for 2009, and that the video format is the No. 1 reason for Mac computers crashing.
"We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash."
Another worry for Apple is the consumption of battery life that Flash requires. Jobs points out that mobile devices need to decode video in hardware, rather than how Flash decodes in software, in order to maximize the potential of battery life.
The H.264 format allows the mobile devices from Apple to decode in hardware and save power.
"The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained."
In addition to the over consumption of power according to Jobs, the Flash format was simply not created for touch screen technology, which would cause developers to have to rewrite their Flash Web sites to allow for Apple's multi-touch interface which has no concept of elements like rollover that are used in Flash by way of PCs and mice.
"Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices."
Lastly Jobs points out that the implementation of Flash capability in Apple mobile devices could lead to lower standards of applications and the progress of the platform could be tempered.
Apple does not want to be at the mercy of a third party, like Adobe. If Adobe is allowed to dictate when it will release a cross platform development tool, then Apple devices could be subject to the lowest level of the format until the third party company decides to make it available.
"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."
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