I just don’t understand why, instead of whining about Apple, Adobe don’t just fix the bugs in Flash that Steve contends are its main problem? How hard can it be to get it right so that it doesn’t suck 90% of the CPU cycles from pretty much every machine you run it on, let alone crashing all sorts of software environments? Then everyone would be happy, consumers included.

Have I missed something here?

@Chris, yeah, you’re missing the main point. Apple wants to control the appmarket in their devices, and flash suposes a threat to that market. Imagine you can use grooveshark to listen to music, or play flash based games, or watch flash-streaming video…all of of it beyond the control of Apple.

Apple is in its right to do what they want with their gadgets. The only losers here are the consumers, as always, but we have the the freedom to choose whatever device we want (and i like the ones apple make :). I’m not defending Apple but my rights as consumer, but i think Apple’s got the best mobile platform and that’s why i use some of their products.

No, @Chris has it exactly right — and you have it (just a little bit) wrong, @Asier.

Yes, Apple wants to control the marketplace for their devices, but no, they’re not doing this JUST because Adobe refuses to fix Flash.

They’re doing it because in the course of hating Flash they discovered that cross-platform development could destabilize the EXPERIENCE of an iPhone in ways they could not control — introducing crashes, memory leaks and security issues.

The iPhone rules because its a great EXPERIENCE. You take that away and what you’re left with is “every other smartphone.” This is why Apple’s iPhone sales are up 131 percent this quarter, not because the iPhone is “the best smartphone.”

Although Apple is going about it in kind a draconian, un-diplomatic sort of way, they have to protect the experience, because that is what’s moving 3M units per month.

As for “consumers,” I’ve never met one who thought they were “missing out” on anything other than porn as far as apps go — and Steve has already offered them a direct alternative! :)

Are consumers “losing out” because they can’t play Flash on the iPhone? To some degree, yes — but if Apple wins this battle, consumers everywhere (and on other phones!) will benefit *hugely*. If nothing else, Apple might actually force Adobe to fix Flash.

Am an with Apple, or against Apple on this one, depending on how you read the rules.

If the point of this rule, is to make sure that if a user selected a UI element in an iPhone app, that it runs Apples UI element, then I totally agree with this rule. It makes perfect sense to force all apps to use your API’s. In the future, let’s say you want to optimize background processing somehow, so you attach some code to the button click control, or a finger swipe control. But, 30% of your software never calls those controls, because they are using Flash’s version of those, then you have a problem.

Now where I am against it is this:
Let’s say two people went to Apple with two pieces of source code for approval, that looked identical. Every caracter in the file was identical. Let’s also say one of these has hand coded in Objective-C, and the other was coded in C# and with something like Mono-touch, was translated into Objective-C. If one gets approved and the other denied, strictly because of how the developer chose to assemble the collections if letters and numbers in that source code file, then I have a problem with Apple. A very big problem.

If the end result is the same program, how they were created is none of Apples business. It makes as much sense as saying I can’t develop in shorts, or drink coffee as I code.

It’s none of there business how I develop, only what I develop.

here’s the game. and why Adobe is wrong about the selective dig.

The ‘translation’ tools Apple is prohibiting are those that take X language and wrap it in code that translates X to the proper languages.

Why is this in issue.

Well for one, you tend to get bloated apps

two. if Apple makes a change in the OS it could brick lots of apps until the translator is fixed. given that many of joe q public don’t make the connection that Apple didn’t write the software and can’t fix it, the complaints become a total nuisance.

Also on the Flash front, it wasn’t made for multi-touch and getting it to work in a multi-touch OS is not easy and ends up super buggy if you aren’t an expert (and even then sometimes too).

so yeah, no shock that Apple isn’t supporting it in the iphone OS and doesn’t want Flash in Javascript clothing (or whatever) apps being sold

Yes Flash is dead…. WE WIN

Not all Flash is replaced by HTML5. That’s a sad argument. There’s also a huge advertising empire built around Flash.

Flash would work fine on Macs if Steve would open up some hooks into the processor but he won’t. It’s a straw-man argument he makes… he’s causing it to be sluggish.

Adobe should give us designers a HTML 5 tool instead.

HELLLLLOOOOO..

Seriously, living on the other side of the screen as a creative, while I can do some pretty spiffy things with Flash, it’s still a PAIN IN THE ASS to work with. You need to be both visual designer AND programmer. And AS3 is serious wirehead stuff, if you come from a design background. Not all of us are part of a team of designers, developers, programmers and editors. Clients send me copy on the backs of cocktail napkins via fax… *cringe*

Flash will not die, it will fade away, as thre are intereactive things still quite difficult to do with HTML5/CSS3/Javascript. Not to mention Flash ads, most of which are annoying as hell,, crappily coded, and seems to be a significant source of Browser crashes on my 3 macs.

I actually somewhat resent HAVING to code multimedia content to have reliable cross-platform playback on the sites I build – even using H.264 and mp3′s. For instance, several JQuery solutions for audio playback still rely on a flash PLAYER for the playback component.

So while I am rooting for HTML5, and have been pleasantly surprised by the number of media heavyweights taking the plunge since the iPad was announced, we’re still going to have to deal with Flash for a while yet – just like IE6 and AOL5.

As for Apple vs Adobe… Adobe treated Apple as a 2nd class citizen for YEARS, though they were happy to take Designer’s money. Steve has no love for Adobe. And seriously, I may have fanlove for Apple, but Adobe (yes, monopoly, dammit, since the macromedia chomp ) has me by the frakkin’ balls. As a graphic and web designer I am not professionally relevant without the CS apps…

Yes, including Flash.

I always think it’s hilarious when people say html 5 is going to defeat flash. I understand that they are speaking representationally about a set of things, but I honestly think that some newb developers think that html 5 standard can literally replace flash. Okay, tell me how you plan on doing client side socket manipulation? RTMP? Full hardware interface? How about the fact that only browsers made after 2009 support most of html 5? OH! You don’t have answers to these questions? Then your ignorant and you don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not html 5 that is going to replace flash, it’s JavaScript 2 that’s going to replace it, and JS 1.9 isn’t even out yet, so keep your pants on.

a few points:

javascript also has hovering and no concept of pinching/etc..

javascript is much slower and therefore battery intensive than actionscript

rendering a W3 DOM document is a lot more cpu/battery intensive than rendering similar content in flash

javascript enables custom controls and arbitrary programming standards, html 5 opens an even greater can of worms for having idevices running things with an ugly alien “look and feel”

the w3 standards still cover only a portion of what flash does, so if html5 is going to replace flash at this point, web developers going to lose a lot of capabilities

browsers frequently crash, just like adobe flash player, and if a misbehaving app on any platform (web, iphone, or otherwise) can bring down the entire platform then that’s a platform bug that should be fixed in the platform

jobs says it’s bad that apple can’t add proprietary extensions to flash, then he says html is good because it’s cross-compatible and one vendor doesn’t control the specs. so are proprietary extensions good or bad?

someone mentioned the “good languages” that are supported on the iphone. only objective-C can directly access cocoa.

adobe isn’t doing anything aggressive here, there’s no company policy they’re refusing to change, it’s not as if these supposed bugs are a policy, they’re an unwanted fact of life in most platforms, including apple’s

also, how ironic, using the proprietary nature of appstore devices to block a competing framework with the rationale that it’s too proprietary. i mean, if proprietary is bad, then isn’t it bad to have no choice of languages or development tools, and to have one vendor (or person) deciding what you’re allowed to do with your device?

i think mac users would be better off spending less energy rationalizing lock-ins and handicaps with rhetoric about “vertical integration” and “look and feel,” and more time trying to convince apple to think differently about their one-size-fits-all war on individuality