For those of you who aren’t up to speed on the Apple/Adobe/Flash/iPhone situation, here are the highlights:
- Apple sells a handful of mobile devices: iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
- Adobe owns and promotes the Flash platform, which is throughout the web for games, video streaming, and advertising. In general, these are the three things for which Flash is well known and widely used.
- Flash sucks on the Mac. It always has. Adobe blames Apple. Apple blames Adobe.
- Apple has thus far refused to allow Flash to run on the iPhone. Steve Jobs has explained why.
- Adobe has thus far failed to demonstrate a competent implementation of Flash on a mobile device.
It seems that, on the topic of Flash on the iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch), we’re at a bit of an impasse. For the sake of brevity, I believe that Flash can die a fiery death and claim its rightful throne in an outer circle of Hell.
Don’t get me wrong, I wholly recognize and accept that Flash filled a very genuine need for a long time. I also insist that this is no longer the case.
With the advent of HTML 5 and open video standards (ignoring the Ogg Theora vs h.264 debate), we no longer need Flash to stream and embed video files. If you need a demonstration, just take a look at SublimeVideo. This knocks out the first of three primary uses for Flash. In the wake of the iPad, many of the most popular sites on the ‘net have rebuilt their sites to harness HTML 5 and eschew flash.
HTML 5 has also provided an alternative for rich user experiences in web-based advertising. For a demonstration, check out Apple’s preview of iPhone OS 4. Skip to the 49 minute mark. I’ll wait. See? Flash is no longer necessary for rich, interactive advertising.
That leaves us with games. I don’t have an answer to that, but I’m starting to see some early indication that this, too, will be solved shortly.
Also, for the sake of discussion, I accept that Flash provided a platform upon which web designers could double as web developers. HTML 5 may replace a lot of the functionality inherent contemporary uses for Flash, but you need to be a developer to use them. Adobe could build an HTML 5 development suite to solve this problem, but I haven’t seen any indication that they care to do that.
Then, there’s the problem of security. In 2009, malicious PDF files comprised 80% of all exploits (source). Flash has its own security problems, yet Adobe doesn’t seem to be serious about addressing them (source).
This brings us to a recent release, “Our thoughts on open markets”, from the chairmen and co-founders of Adobe. Rather than sharing a lengthy response, I’ll direct you toward the Macalope’s appropriately snarky reaction. It’s worth reading, and I mostly agree with him.
The one part of their letter that really bothers me, though, is this:
In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody — and everybody, but certainly not a single company.
Let’s look at the numbers.
According to StatCounter, in analyzing the traffic of more than 3 million websites, mobile web browsers are responsible for a paltry 2.29% of all traffic. Of that 2.29%, Mobile Safari is the second most popular, taking a 20% share of the mobile market. That means that Mobile Safari is responsible for 0.05% of all traffic on the sites surveyed by StatCounter.
0.05% works out to 1 out of every 2000.
And yet, despite these relatively minuscule numbers, Adobe has the gall to imply that Apple is somehow controlling the future of the open web by banning a proprietary runtime from running on their device.
That makes no sense to me.
Get with it, Adobe. Flash is a sinking ship.
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