Skip to main content

Steve Jobs Gives Reasons For Not Using Flash, But do You Buy it?

steve-jobs-ipad-274x300In the wake of the Apple iPad launch, Apple CEO Steven P. Jobs launched into a cross-country media tour. Even as his much ballyhooed tablet was being picked apart by critics who questioned its ability to serve as a competent eBook reader, Mr. Jobs visited The Wall Street Journal and other major news industry players in an effort to boost the device’s public perception.

However, Mr. Jobs found the folks at the WSJ were asking him the same question, a question that had infuriated him time after time — “Why doesn’t the i<device> have Flash?”

Recommended Videos

Jobs’ mobile devices boycott of Flash, one of the most widely used internet formats, is close to extraordinary. Even Microsoft, who has its own competitive format (Silverlight) has cooperated with Adobe in ensuring Flash runs smoothly on Windows PCs and is ported to Windows smartphones. Apple, meanwhile, has been almost the only major player to play the role of Flash obstructionist.

Apple has its reasons. Flash on a base level provides a very real threat to Apple’s lucrative App Store, one of the key things that it uses to differentiate the iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad from its competitors. If Apple adopted Flash, many of its developers could move to Flash which would free them of the restrictions of Apple’s App Store approval process. And that would ultimately ruin the exclusivity of Apple’s app catalog and make Apple vulnerable to handsets with superior hardware. Also, with Flash customers could simply view TV episodes from Hulu for free, rather than buy them from Apple’s iTunes store.

To try to obscure this fact, Mr. Jobs has stepped up his attacks on the format. At the WSJ meeting, he reportedly called Flash a “CPU hog” and a source of “security holes.” And he smartly jabbed, “We don’t spend a lot of energy on old technology.”

He then claimed that Apple was responsible for getting people to abandon a host of technologies including floppy drives (by lack of inclusion in the iMac), old data ports (including its own), CCFL-backlit LCD screens (Apple now uses LED backlighting), and, most questionably, CDs (he says CDs are dying due to Apple’s iPod, iTunes Store, CD-ripping software and the “Rip, Mix, Burn” campaign). The reality distortion field seems particularly in full blast with the last claim, as there were 300 million CDs sold last year (that’s 80 percent of all album sales industry-wide).

He followed those dubious claims with another. Apple will get people to abandon Flash.

Flash, he argues is simply no good. It crashes Macs (granted, Macs have had plenty of problems recently with nary a Flash app in sight) and runs too slow for his tastes. He also claims that Flash would reduce the iPad’s battery life from 10 hours to 1.5 hours.

He says it would be “trivial” for online content providers to bow to Apple’s will and replace Flash content with H.264 video codecs. To an extent he may be right on this point — the H.264+HTML5 movement is gaining momentum. However, even here Apple is trying to control what is and isn’t allowed. HTML 5 can also be made to support the free Ogg Theora codecs, but Apple has tried to block that, in favor of the expensive, proprietary H.264 format, a source of a growing squabble. Ultimately, regardless of which format is embraced HTML5, though, seems unlikely to be able to offer as deep user input and particularly the graphics-generation libraries as Flash.

Topics
Ian Bell
I work with the best people in the world and get paid to play with gadgets. What's not to like?
Whatever you do, don’t buy the Asus ROG Ally right now
A man plays High on Life on an Asus ROG Ally.

The Asus ROG Ally is undoubtedly one of the best handheld gaming PCs you can buy, but right now is easily the worst time to buy one. Asus has already teased that a new handheld is on the way, and it sounds like a massive upgrade. On top of that, the cost of the ROG Ally is holding steady at list price, and it likely won't stay that way for long.

If you're in the market for Asus' handheld, you should wait just a bit longer. In a few weeks from now, you'll not only have more options but you'll also probably save some money.
X is on the way

Read more
How long do MacBooks last? Here’s when you’ll need to buy again
The M3 MacBook Air in front of a window.

There’s no doubt that Apple’s best MacBooks have a reputation for long-lasting quality, but what sort of longevity can you expect to get out of one? And just how long will Apple continue to support your laptop? Finally, what are the differences between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro?

These are no doubt important questions to consider when buying a new MacBook or even considering an upgrade. Here's everything you know about the longevity of your MacBook.
Lifespan of MacBook hardware

Read more
Whatever you do, don’t buy a Windows laptop right now
Gaming on a laptop with the Snapdragon X Elite chip

There's a revolution in the making. Those of us who've been watching closely know that Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips are rumored to be just around the corner. And they're about to ignite a bomb in the world of Windows laptops.

That might sound like exaggeration at first blush. But Qualcomm has spent the better part of this year trotting around a demo unit with this chip, and the performance so far looks pretty astounding. Not only is Qualcomm claiming that its new chips will run circles around Intel's latest Core Ultra chips -- but it's even pitting them against Apple's M3. That's right. There's even a significant jump in AI performance via the chip's neural processing unit (NPU).

Read more