(http://www.zerofractal.com/assets/error-flash.jpg)
Perhaps the most frequent complaint I saw was that Apple still refuses to add Flash support for the iPhone — or the iPod Touch, or the iPad. Based on Steve Jobs' ultra-brief comment about Flash after Thursday's presentation and some newly discovered fine print in the iPhone SDK, however, it's safe to say that Flash won't be coming to Apple's mobile products anytime soon.
Jobs has made no secret of his distaste for Adobe and its Flash plug-in, previously calling it "buggy," crash-prone, and a CPU hog. And a question-and-answer session after Thursday's iPhone OS 4.0 unveiling proved that his stance hasn't changed one iota.
During the brief Q&A, Sir Steve was only too happy to chat about Apple's new iAd advertising campaign and the "butterflies" in his stomach right before the iPad launch, and he even humored a reporter who asked about Apple's stance on distracted driving. But when it came to whether Apple had plans to add Flash support to the iPhone, he supplied a one-word answer: a "flat" no, according to Engadget.
Not long afterward, blogger John Gruber of Daring Fireball discovered another little stink bomb for Adobe: a new restriction in the license for the iPhone software developers kit that bans developers from using cross-platform development tools for building iPhone and iPod Touch apps — a restriction that appears to apply to an Adobe tool used by Flash developers.
The new restriction is being widely interpreted as a yet another slap in the face to Adobe, which just issued a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission stating that "our business could be harmed" as "new releases of operating systems or other third-party products, platforms or devices, such as the Apple iPhone or iPad, make it more difficult for our products to perform, and our customers are persuaded to use alternative technologies," according to Bloomberg.
Jobs is pushing HTML5, an open Web standard that supports streaming audio and video, as a more attractive (if nascent) alternative to Flash. Jobs crowed Thursday that in-app advertisements in Apple's new iAd platform would be powered by HTML5, a winking aside that provoked a knowing titter from the audience.
This isn't just a matter of working out a few technical details or a contractual snag or two. From my chair, it's looking more like a schoolyard shoving match, and as an avid iPhone user who'd like to — call me crazy — be able to view the occasional embedded Flash video on my browser, I'm annoyed to be stuck in the middle.
Let's just go with the assumption (not held by everyone, by the way) that Flash is buggy and a CPU hog. Fine — but why not give us the option of choosing for ourselves whether to enable Flash on our iPhones (say, in the Settings menu)?
Sounds reasonable, but it'll never happen. Because (and again, I say this as the proud owner of two MacBooks, an iPhone, and an iPad), as usual, Steve Knows Best.
Anyway, that's my opinion. What about you? Is Apple right to snub Flash when it comes to the iPhone? Is Flash too buggy? Is Steve being too stubborn?