Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. 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. Let me explain.

First, there’s “Open”.

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.

Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.

Second, there’s the “full web”.

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.

Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?

Fourth, there’s battery life.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.

When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Fifth, there’s Touch.

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.

Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.

Conclusions.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that 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.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Steve Jobs
April, 2010

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

It was quite the wait outside of the Apple Store in Old Orchard shopping mall. Arriving at around noon and seeing a sea of people all waiting in a winding line to purchase the next version of Apple’s latest craze product, the iPhone. I took one look and turned away. Thought to myself that maybe I’d have better luck if I went to an AT&T wireless store.

So back in my car I used my original iPhone to search for an AT&T dealer. Realizing that there weren’t any really close stores, I decided to drive back towards my house and visit the local AT&T store. I arrived and was excited to see there was NO LINE! Fantastic, I’d be in and out in 20 minutes. And I was. I signed in, looked around, played with the display models and then about 20 minutes later I heard one of the reps tell another customer that they were sold out. Before I go off on a rant and express my anger, I’ll just say this. AT&T, you could have at least put up a sign or told customers, upon arrival, that you were already sold out. That’s all.

Back in my car now, I decide to look up more AT&T wireless stores, because there is no way in hell that I’ll wait in that line at the Apple Store. So I find another one in the neighboring suburb and decide to drive out there. Apparently the store had closed because I drove all around the area and found nothing! Ok, so let’s just go to another AT&T store. I locate one on my iPhone and start heading over there. Again, I arrive and cannot find it! So I decide to call and find out that now it’s a Verizon store. Great.

Alright, now I’ve got a decision to make. I’m near the shopping mall again where I originally started, but I’m also near the house. I’m about at the half way point. It’s around 2:50pm, I’ve had no luck for the past 3 hours. Off to the Apple store!

I arrive at the line around 3:30pm. It’s hot, the sun is beaming right on me and I look behind me to see…nobody. I was last in line. There had to be at least 200 people in front of me and they were letting about 5-10 people into the store every 45 minutes. This was going to be a long day. The reason for the limited amount of people being allowed in the store was because the Apple/AT&T activation process had been stalled or crashed, or who the heck knows!

So there I am in line. The guys in front of me have already created a bond of some sort and are talking Apple/iPhone, you get the idea. It was geek day. I loved it. Of course I had to chime in and become part of the conversation because after about 5 minutes I realized if I don’t start talking this wait is going to be even longer! We continue through the line and eventually, maybe an hour and half into it, I decide I need to eat something/drink something. Apple employees were nice enough to hand out muffins, water and lemonade throughout the day, but that wasn’t cutting it with this heat. Now, because of the alliance that I have created with the people around me, I decided they probably would save my spot if I went to get something to eat right quick. But to entice them, I offered them water.

Sure enough, I left the line, got a chicken salad sandwich, used the toilet and had a smoke. It was lovely. I wasn’t confined to the line. Anyway, I picked up some waters, went back to the line and was astonished to see the progress they made in the line! They had covered quite the ground while I was away. But there was still a lot of line/waiting left.

To move things forward, we reached the inside of the store about 4 hours into the wait. We finally made it and were sitting inside the Apple store on chairs that any other day would have been uncomfortable. But because of the 4 hours on my feet, these chairs were a god send! Now begins the waiting game. I felt like I was waiting for a prostitute in the red light district because one by one, an Apple employee would walk up to the row of seats, take the next person and “service” them. By service I mean they would ask which iPhone 3G they wanted, any accessories and they would activate their phones. Nothing sexual or dirty. 

My time had come. I was chosen. I knew exactly what I wanted and when the Apple store employee asked, I said, “I’ll take a pair of headphones!” He looked confused and asked, “um is that all? Are you serious?” Of course I was joking but I wanted to see the look on his face, I was just too excited at this point so I had to make a joke! Very nice! Anyway, I wanted to seem like a smart shopper so I asked a few questions. Questions I already knew the answers to. But regardless I asked questions. So I finally told him exactly what I wanted, he went to the back and got it for me. I got my new phone number. Activated my new iPhone 3G and walked over to the Barnes & Nobles where I sank into one of their chairs and uploaded all my data off my laptop to the new iPhone 3G!

It was now 9:40pm. I had my phone. The iPhone 3G was set up and ready to go and so was I. Back home to download from the new App store and play around with my new gadget!

-Bos