You know, this whole Flash War reminds me of that scene in Something About Mary when Mary has that “foreign substance” in her hair and doesn’t know it.
I’m really getting the feeling that most people are missing the bigger unspoken point about Apple’s position on Flash: Apple does not want a revenue threat against their App Store.
Anyone who knows anything about Flash knows that this isn’t about Flash but the development platform it uses. That platform is sophisticated enough so that a sophisticated Flex developer could easily build a fully functioning App Store. The store could process credit card charges and deliver applications to the iPhone in a heartbeat.
That’s the main reason why “Flash” won’t appear on the iPhone. There’s only one AppStore and it’s Apple’s. It’s also why they don’t allow Cydia on the AppStore. They know it’s another store that can do almost everything theirs does except give them Cydia’s profits.
The truth about Steve’s points are bullshit too. Flash would wreck battery life? Really? For one moment, let’s make believe that the iPhone had a fantastic new battery: Flash then wouldn’t be a drain. Time to take that off the list. How about the “hover/mouseover” argument? Really Steve? An interaction design decision is enough to ban a piece of technology? Whatever.
You also say that Flash is the #1 reason why Macs crash. Then why do you allow such a horrid piece of software plague your Mac OS? I would think that if you were really worried about it, you’d simply snuff that out on the Mac long before the iPhone came out in 2007, but you didn’t. So that must mean you’re actually not too worried about Flash.
Finally, the worry about a different approach to developing apps on your platform. The truth is, you don’t have to worry about this. You’ve already made the case for total integration with your desktop, mp3 players, set-top boxes, phones, and now pads so compelling that there’s no WAY Flash could step into that ecosystem and throw a huge wrench there. The truth is, you’re not dependent on developers to decide when you make enhancements. You make enhancements and force the third parties to keep up. If they can’t, they go away and developers return to you. This scenario actually holds up when you consider your transition to Intel based machines. Developers had to ditch their old ways and move to the new one. Didn’t seem to hurt you too much then, huh?
Own up to it. This is about disallowing a potential competing AppStore that would threaten your business model.
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