When I first heard about the iPhone, back in 2007, one of my biggest gripes (and I think many can relate with me here) was its lack of flash support. Even back then, Flash Lite was available on various phones (granted, most of them in Japan, but Verizon had a couple), and it seemed ridiculous to me that the iPhone, with all its power and capabilities, couldn’t run even that. This quickly took a backseat to the complaints about lack of native apps, then multitasking, app store rejections, etc. (I never cared that much about copy/paste support, to this day I’ve only ever used it once, but I concede that this was also a pretty popular complaint at one point)
Well, one by one, all most of those problems were solved (ahem, app store). The biggest remaining problem now is simply the lack of Flash support on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the larger iPod Touch iPad (another rant for another time).
As we probably all know, there has been a war waging between Apple and Adobe for some time. This is a pointless and stupid war, because the two companies should really work together to make computing more enjoyable for everyone. Then again, media industries should embrace piracy and it should rain chocolate every Thursday, some things just aren’t going to happen. In the past, the two companies kept their conflict somewhat private, as the two relied on each other for a large portion of their profits. Apple had (successfully) built up an image of the Mac as the absolute best computer for creatives. Creatives use Adobe products practically exclusively. If Adobe dropped support for Macs, they would lose a huge number of customers, and Mac sales would drop drastically. Neither company could afford this, so they made their peace and lived with the status quo.
Since 2007, however, Apple has had a new bargaining chip. With the launch of the iPhone, Apple’s largest source of income is no longer its computers. They would suffer if they somehow lost their computer business, but it isn’t anywhere close to something that could be considered a ‘large’ portion of their revenue. Adobe is in the same position it always was. Apple now has the upper hand, and can begin to act against Adobe. Hence the lack of iPhone Flash support.
It boils down to this: Apple and Adobe hate each other, despite past appearances. Adobe has no leverage on Apple anymore, thus Apple can do what it wants, thus no iPhone Flash. Ever.
Now the thing about this, is that it isn’t as bad as everybody makes it out to be. While yes, it would be nice to have access to so much of the content out there on the internet that’s made in Flash, but let’s face it: Flash really sucks.
Apple outlined this in Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash” letter, but I’ll reiterate. What it basically comes down to is this:
- Flash is a closed system. As widely used as Flash is, it is still a proprietary plugin made by a single company. Adobe called Jobs a hypocrite for making this point, with the App Store being the walled garden that it is, but I feel that the difference is that there’s still Cydia and the jailbroken apps. Apple can’t stop the jailbreaking of their devices, and thus anybody not happy with the restrictions that Apple imposes on the App Store has an alternative (of course, if Apple had its way, we would not have this alternative, and then I’d have to re-evaluate all of this). Adobe is in control of Flash, and they can use it to serve their own purposes.
- Flash is clunky, old, and slow. While I recognize that Steve Jobs is bullshitting to some extent when he claims that most of the crashes that happen on a Mac are due to Flash, I also know that Flash, historically, is just really slow. The new Gala release (which takes advantage of GPU acceleration on Macs) is somewhat better, but it isn’t fixed yet. I still hear my fans spin up during long Hulu or Youtube videos. Flash is not something I want to be dependent on, not until Adobe makes it much more enjoyable to use, on a Mac and elsewhere.
- We are addicted to Flash. While I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard to support Flash on the iPhone (hey, Android is doing it now), Apple is choosing not to. They have chosen to cut us off from the massive amount of content made in Flash on the Internet. While this might seem like a bad thing, look at the previous two points again. Flash sucks. While the number of Flash movies, games, and apps that exist on the Internet is huge, there are much better options out there, and we need to start breaking our reliance on Flash. That starts by quitting cold-turkey.
So there you have it. I’m siding with Apple on this one, for a change. Flash sucks, and we need to stop using it until Adobe makes it better. Hence, I’m not pissed at Apple for refusing to support it on their devices. There are better alternatives out there, such as HTML5 (cue angelic choir), which are supported on the iPhone OS devices. Youtube has been converting their videos from flv to h.264 since the launch of the iPhone, and we’re starting to see a lot more of that kind of media now (This, unfortunately, isn’t a great solution either, as the h.264 is a proprietary format as well, and companies must pay a licensing fee to use it. Something else like Ogg Theora would be even better, but it is still really inefficient. Oh well, another rant for another time).
And for those of you who think that HTML5 is only revolutionary for video, but Flash is still required for all of those wonderful games, I would tell you to take a look at Google’s Native Client SDK (NaCl for short – ha!):
(Skip to 4:30 for an example, if you aren’t interested in the geeky aspects of NaCl)
NaCl allows programmers to run regular old code in a web browser. This means that you can write a program in C or C++, in the same manner you would if you were writing a desktop app, but then run it as a web app, in an HTML5-compliant browser. It lets you make great-looking, fast apps, using 2D or 3D graphics, that are instantly cross-platform to iPhone OS, OS X, Windows, and Linux. Plus, it’s open-source. Basically, it does everything Flash does, but better. It’s already built into your iPhone, Android Phone, Laptop, Desktop, and even some HDTVs.
HTML5 is the warrior we need to defeat the old, cantankerous dragon that is Flash. The iPhone supports it, something it will never do for Flash. Flash is dead, long live HTML5.