Why is there no Adobe Flash on the iPad? Adobe says it’s not because it’s buggy, as an Apple source claimed this afternoon to CultofMac.com.
It’s because Apple is protecting revenue streams derived from content like movies and games. If users could watch free TV shows on Hulu, they wouldn’t buy them through iTunes.
“It’s pretty clear if you connect the dots: the issue is about revenue,” says Adrian Ludwig, an Adobe group product manager for Flash, during a telephone interview on Friday afternoon.
While Steve Jobs says the iPad offers the best web-browsing experience, Flash isn’t part of it. Adobe’s plug-in is nowhere to be found, making popular sites such as YouTube and Hulu useless on Apple’s new device. Likewise, Flash is also absent from the iPhone and iPod touch.
Ludwig flatly denies that Flash is excluded from Apple’s mobile devices because it is buggy, crash-prone or puts an excessive strain on batteries.
Ludwig says there is no technical reason that Flash should not be on the iPad as well as the iPhone. Adobe is working with about 50 partners in the mobile space, including big names like Google, Nokia and HTC, as well as 19 out of 20 handset manufacturers. (See Adobe’s Open Screen Project website). Ludwig said the Flash player is stable and would perform well on hardware like the iPad.
“We’ve been seeing great performance on similar devices,” he said. “The hardware is very capable.”
But Ludwig notes that if Flash were available on the iPad, users could watch TV shows on Hulu for free instead of buying them through iTunes. Likewise, users could play some of the hundreds of Flash games on sites like Miniclip, instead of buying games through the App Store, on which Apple takes a 30% cut of every sale.
“Apple has eliminated any way to get content on the device that they don’t own,” says Ludwig. “Apple is keeping the device closed to protect their revenue streams.”
Ludwig notes that other companies’ technologies that could be used to serve content or games are also excluded — Java, Ruby, Python and .Net.
“We’re not the only one,” he says. “Flash is what people are focused on but it’s not just Flash that’s not working. They’ve blocked a whole lot more than that… It’s a universal restriction.”
“We’re trying to raise the issue,” he adds. “We’re talking about long-term damage to the development environment. We’re just the poster child for this.”
Ludwig says Adobe has been working closely with Apple on Flash for the iPhone (he didn’t say if or when it would ship), but wasn’t aware Apple had tested it on the iPad.
“We haven’t received any communication that they are testing Flash on the iPad or any feedback about its performance,” Ludwig says. “If there’s any truth that it’s buggy, I’d love to help them out.”
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
