Ever since Apple decided to not allow Adobe Flash on its iPhone/iPod Touch, much has been speculated of the reasons to not allow Flash on them. This matter became more obvious with the launch of the Apple iPad, advertised as the best web browsing experience, but still without supporting Adobe Flash. One of the most commented excuses being performance. Apple doesn't want their batteries being drained by software that Steve Jobs himself considers buggy and much less being affected by the security issues that Adobe Flash has been subject to.
But surely there must be more to the story, I always keep in mind that Apple not only is comitted to good engineering but also to profit-making. Apple, also has been known to excersie a lot of control over their products. Profit-making and control - Now that seems more like the attitude of the Sillicon Valley companies I seen over the decade.
"No profit grows where there is no pleasure taken"
-William Shakespeare
In this cease, no profit decreases, and that is exactly what Apple is trying to prevent, Adobe with its Flash platfrom from doing in any of its "apps-driven" devices, such as the iPhone, iPod and now the iPad and any future iPhoneOS based device for that matter. As I mentioned earlier, it all boils down to control and profit-making. Okay, so, let's suppose that Adobe Flash works perfectly with multi-touch devices, that it isn't a security risk or that it won't drain devices battery -- If, Apple lets Adobe Flash to be executed in any of the devices that runs iPhone OS, Apple automatically looses control over what Apps are allowed and which ones are not. Period. Developers can avoid the Apps Store and Approval Process altogether and in essence host Flash apps outside the Kingdom of Apple. Which means, that if you are a developer and you are selling an app, guess what's Apple revenue from it? That's right, zero, nada., nothing. Apple loves revenue, more than any other company. Except maybe Microsoft. It's easy (from a business perspective of course) to understand why they probably will never, ever, allow Adobe Flash on iPhone OS.
Money-wise it is in essence, bad business for Apple. So is there any possibility of seeing Adobe Flash on the iPad? If the need for Flash proves to be convincing, and more importantly affects Apple's revenue, of course! - But I wouldn't have high hopes for a full-blown version of Flash or fancy Flash Apps, only a stripped-down version limited only to animations. Do I think there's going to be a serious need for Adobe Flash? Absolutely not. There hasn't been any monstrous need for Flash on the iPhone/iPod. I have not met any single non-tech user complaining how much his iPhone sucks because it lacks Flash. The major use for Flash without undoubtedly is video playback, or Flash Video how fancy people call it, their major user? and most of the videos embedded on websites are currently being hosted at the biggest online video hosting service in the globe, YouTube. Besides YouTube, the only relevant player is Hulu, which doesn't have any app for iPhone OS devices, but I'm expecting one. Why? Steve Jobs is on the Board of Directors of Disney and Disney owns about a third of Hulu. I don't know about Flash, but you can expect a Hulu app.
So in the end, in my opinion the only thing I'm going to miss for not having Flash, are pesky websites ads, which BTW, I don't mind ever seeing again.
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3 comments:
Flash apps are not prohibited from running on the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. See the announcement in http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/ :
"Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5 will include a Packager for iPhone that will let you publish ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications for iPhone. These applications can be delivered to iPhone users through the Apple App Store."
This seems vastly superior for Flash developers: they'll not only be able to create apps easily, but they'll be able to make money off them.
Websites will not be able to run Flash apps on my iProducts without my permission. IMO, that's the way it should be. If there is a demand for a particular Flash app, there should be no reason that it can't be made available to the iAudience.
There have certainly been efforts to make that happen, but so far they haven't produced any kind of success.... I hope Apple finally approves this change of strategy from Adobe.
I think that way they will definitely live to the expectations of most, and even appeal to a wider audience.
And I agree that's the way it should be. So far that's pretty much what I stated, Apple will only allow Adobe Flash apps if they control them via the App Store and prevents third-partiers from making money with unauthorized web Flash apps, which means blocking other types of animations and fully Flash-based websites in the process. But I think it's definitely fair what they are asking, if you have a killer Flash website, port it over as an App and have it on the App Store. But so far, still no Flash player on the Web browser, which I believe some people, was expecting this too. I don't mind though.
In the end, it’s basically as I stated, as long as Apple keeps having profits and control over it, I don't see any other reason why any of this shouldn't happen. I think this is what Apple wanted in the first place, to make Adobe fix all the issues it had before letting them get in into the app game.
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