Flash too ‘buggy’ for Apple?
Written by Michael Swengel on February 1, 2010
During an internal meeting in the wake of Apple’s release of the iPad, Steve Jobs explained to Apple employees why the iPhone and iPad have yet to support Flash – and likely never will.
Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5.
Really? Flash is buggy? An architecture upon which much of the web is built is ‘buggy’? The platform that makes sites like YouTube and Vimeo possible is buggy?
Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash.
Sorry Steve. Now it sounds like you’re just making excuses. Why is it, then, that Windows, Solaris and Linux use Flash just fine? Even if Flash were the buggiest software known to man, the end user should still be able to decide if he/she wants to use it.
Regardless, this portion of his comment concerns me most:
No one will be using Flash.
So 98% of Internet users is ‘no one’? Atlantic Records, the American Cancer Society, the Discovery Channel, the NASDAQ, Salesforce… These are all ‘no one’?
The world is moving to HTML5.
This comment leads me to believe that Steve understands neither the nature of the Flash platform nor that of HTML5. HTML5 is an excellent update of the familiar HTML4 standard. It supports video, live visual effects, and a host of new capabilities. But HTML5 is simply not Flash. Comparing the two is like comparing apples to broccoli.
As discussed in an earlier post, Adobe’s Flash platform spans a wide range of technologies that HTML5 simply has not touched. The reason is simple: HTML5 and Flash are vastly different technologies intended for vastly different purposes. Flash is meant for true web development. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is not.
While the world is moving from HTML4 to HTML5, the adoption of HTML5 is a poor excuse to abandon Flash.
I would love to see mobile Safari support HTML5, and in time it will. But without Flash, the iDevice Internet experience is simply incomplete.
Be assured that this is Apple’s problem. Adobe has offered numerous times to develop a Flash player for Apple’s mobile OS, but Apple has shot them down time and time again.
I do hope that in time Apple will come to understand how foolish it is to neglect Flash and its huge user base. Until that day, however, users of the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch are left with a crippled web experience.
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