Steve Jobs says one of the reasons Apple won't use Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iTouch is that it is not open. That goes beyond the pot calling the kettle black!
From the company that brings you the locked in iPhone, locked in music format, locked in iTunes, locked in hardware, locked in OS, locked in, black box everything. They are going to blame another company for not being open enough to suit them.
Before any of you Apple fan boys start running off about what a big supporter of “open standards” Apple is, save it. Apple only supports a standard if they have a hand in setting it and it benefits themselves.
As a reluctant owner of multiple Apple devices I deal with their closed, locked in philosophy all day, every day. Yeah, they make great products that look good and work well most of the time. But one thing they are not is open.
Not only is their technology not open, but they keep a tight fist around what anyone else can sell or do as well. Hence setting themselves up as the ultimate arbiter of what can and can’t be in the app store for example.
To be fair to Steve Jobs he does offer up other reasons why Apple won’t use Flash. It is resource intensive on a mobile platform with potential security issues (I love it when Apple cares so much about our security) and it is quirky and not suited to a touchscreen environment. I am not sure HTML5 is going to be any better in the touchscreen world either.
Where I do again strongly disagree with Jobs is his assertion that just because there are all of these apps on the iPhone already that is proof that Flash is no longer necessary. Steve, maybe you go to different web sites than I do. But I hate using my iPhone to go out on the web. I am tired of seeing that little grey dot or diamond where a rich content flash plug in would be showing me vital and entertaining information.
If Apple is so open why not let me be the judge of how I want to use my battery life and give me the option of installing flash or not. When you run as closed a system as my iPhone is, you don’t get the right to throw stones at anyone for not being open enough.
