Are we witnessing Steve Jobs' swan song?

Some of the more obvious corrections:

The word "open" in this context is in regard to what developers are able to do with the technology. Not whether or not the platform is proprietary. In other words, if you buy flash, you can make whatever you want with it and put it right onto the net without anyones approval. Not the case with Apple.

If there are 50k games in the App Store, there are easily 500k flash games on the internet.

Flash is very prevalent on the internet. The burden to make a mobile device that delivers the internet is on the mobile device developers. We, the consumers of mobile devices, have routinely asked every mobile device developer to show us Flash performing well on THEIR device. We have never seen it. That's Apple's fault. Not Adobe's. Until they can come through with that, they ought to more correctly advertise their product as delivering "partial internet browsing."

As Jobs points out, Flash supports H.264. What sense does it make to say that the old video form kills the battery. Isn't it better that it's at least an option to see old content? Eating more battery life is better than seeing zero. And new content can be made for the more efficient video in the future.

"Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices." This is not true by any stretch of the imagination. There may be some sites that rely on roll-overs for actions. But, that would be an atypical UI. Rollovers are mostly used for aesthetic purposes. Regular clicks would suffice for most designs.

The "dependency" argument makes no sense either. The Apple products could support Flash IN ADDITION to any other platform they like. So, new cutting edge features that they want would be just as immediately available to developers as they are now. The difference would be that developers could choose what they want to learn, wait for and develop in. If using these cutting edge features immediately is anything anyone values, then Apple should have nothing to fear from developers preferring to use a third party platform.

If their motivation is to provide the most advanced applications, they would allow Flash. While many transitions, effects, capabilities can be implemented in the platforms their products allow, there aren't as many developers that can do so as there are in Flash. Allowing Flash would greatly broaden the talent pool that is making applications (as well as reduce the cost). The market of developers aren't going to adapt their skill-set to the whims of Steve Jobs. Not in a free market where some other platform will be willing to tap that skill-set as-is.

Flash is quite capable for touch devices. There are many award winning examples of this.

Being able to watch video is not the measure of whether or not Flash is still "necessary." It's not a matter of necessity but of suitability. Flash is very well suited for mobile devices of all kinds and will find it's way there whether Steve Jobs wants to author it out of the future or not. This is for the same reason that many developers find Flash more suitable for many types of projects on the internet, where they have many options for accomplishing the same goals.

Perhaps Steve Jobs should focus more on how the internet is being used and what platforms developers prefer to use. That way, he can avoid making himself part of the past.

Flashlackey
April, 2010