Jobs Criticizes Flash
Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs recently said that Adobe’s Flash software is a “closed system” that is not well-suited for the company’s mobile device platforms.
The announcement has sparked a war of words between the two companies as Jobs said the software has too many bugs, drains batteries too quickly and is too geared toward personal computers to work efficiently on Apple’s iPhones and iPads.
Jobs said the Flash system is closed because it is a proprietary system from Adobe, which controls everything from its features to its pricing. Ironically, similar charges have been lobbed against Apple’s products and services as well.
In a letter posted on Apple’s website, Jobs referred to a number of problems with Flash that makes it incompatible with Apple’s devices.
“Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true,” he said.
Jobs said there are security issues with the Flash system, as well as technical drawbacks. “Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs,” he said. “But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short,” he added.
Jobs stated the most obvious reason for excluding Flash from its mobile devices, is that the software company puts a third party between Apple and software developers. That means that developers can take advantage of improvements from Apple only if Adobe upgrades its own software first.
Apple has been criticized for not using Flash, which limits what the iPhone is capable of, as a lot of games and apps require Flash to work. But Jobs rebutted, saying that with an abundance of media outlets offering content, “Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of Web content.”
“And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games,” he wrote.
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