Steve Jobs published a letter today explaining his point of view on the Adobe Flash restriction issue in iPhone OS 4. In the past Jobs gave his “short” thoughts in an email exchange with a user. In addition, Trudy Muller, an Apple spokesman, said that iPhone supports all open technologies.
“I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads,” Jobs said in his letter. Jobs argues that Apple is using “open” technology while Adobe is a “closed” system. “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,” he said. “Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards,” Jobs continued. He also went in to length giving an example on how Apple contributes to the technology community with “open” software. “Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too,” Jobs wrote.
A second point Jobs is making is on the “full web” capabilities of iPhone OS devices. Adobe argues that 75% of video on the web is in Flash. “What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever,” Jobs wrote. He also mentioned a long list of networks that supported on iPhone OS devices. “Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video,” Jobs continued. He also mentions that the fact that there are a lot of Flash games available that can not be played in iPhone OS devices, it is not a concern for the users. “Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free,” he wrote.
A third point is on reliability, security and performance. Jobs mentions the issues on security and reliability with Adobe Flash. “Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. 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,” Jobs wrote. He is also questioning Adobe’s ability to bring Flash on a mobile platform. “Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?,” Jobs wrote.
Jobs also touched the issue with battery life. “To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power,” he wrote. “Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. 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,” Jobs continued.
Jobs questions the ability for flash content to be used in “touch” devices. “Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?” Jobs wrote.
Finally, Jobs gave his “most important” reason why iPhone OS 4 will not allow Flash content. “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,” Jobs wrote. “This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features,” he continued. “Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen”.
Closing his later Jobs said that Adobe should focus on new technology and functionality. “Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind,” Jobs concluded.
The complete letter can be found in Apple’s website
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