Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s official. It has been known that Apple wouldn’t be including Flash on the iPad for a little while, but now we have a better knowledge of why…
In my opinion, the whole mess is a rather complicated ‘he said, she said” mess. Is either company truly correct? NO! Both companies are doing the classic “blame someone else and cover my %@$!” So, here is what I have collected on the situation.
Adobe’s Flash isn’t on the iPad because, Steve Jobs apparently told employees that Flash would soon be made obsolete by HTML5, and that it’s too buggy, obviating the need for it in the iPad. He, at another point, stated that Flash is “buggy”.
In retaliation, Adobe released some information to Cult of Mac, the same site to whom Apple also releases a lot of their info. “It’s pretty clear if you connect the dots: the issue is about revenue,” says Adrian Ludwig, an Adobe group product manager for Flash, during an interview with Cult of Mac. He said that Flash isn’t buggy, crash-prone (another of Steve Jobs complaints), and doesn’t strain battery life. There is no technical reason for Flash not to be on the iPad or iPhone, says Ludwig. “We’ve been seeing great performance on similar devices,” he said. “The hardware is very capable.”
Now…if Flash was on the iPad, you could go on sites like Hulu for TV and game sites for games instead of buying them from iTunes, thus reducing Apple’s sales (on each of which, Apple makes a 30% profit).
“Apple has eliminated any way to get content on the device that they don’t own,” said Ludwig. “Apple is keeping the device closed to protect their revenue streams. We’re not the only one, Flash is what people are focused on but it’s not just Flash that’s not working. They’ve blocked a whole lot more than that… It’s a universal restriction. We’re trying to raise the issue. We’re talking about long-term damage to the development environment. We’re just the poster child for this.”
So, is Flash buggy, or does it just reduce Apple’s 30% profit?
