Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, is a man who likes to share his thoughts, and the outspoken chief’s latest rant on the company blog is no exception; taking aim at Adobe and its Flash offering in a move to silence critics.
The Flash wars have been waging for years now, but recently escalated with the launch of the iPad and with new technology such as HTML5 reaching maturity.
Several weeks ago, an Adobe employee posted a rather vociferous tirade against the fruit themed gadget maker, tearing into Apple for recent changes to its iPhone developer program license agreement, which now only allows for applications to be written in Objective-C, C, C++ or Javascript and executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine.
You can read the post in its entirety over on
Adobe’s blog for details, but the outburst was all the more bombastic for its closing salvo, in which Lee Brimelow wrote “let me put aside my role as an official representative of Adobe for a moment as I would look to make it clear what is going through my mind at the moment. Go screw yourself Apple.”
Uncharacteristic indeed for the usually sterile, passive aggressive world of corporate business.
It didn’t take long for Jobs to respond, and to make his feelings abundantly clear, El Jobs has now decided to do a bit of blogging of his own.
Patronizing to the core, Jobs starts by mentioning he knew Adobe’s founders “when they were in their proverbial garage.” Apple, he reminds his readers was Adobe’s “first big customer,” using the firm’s Postscript language for its Laserwriter printer.
So buddy-buddy were the two firms, Apple even invested in Adobe, owning “around 20% of the company for many years.”
“There were many good times,” writes Jobs nostalgically, alluding cheesily to a “golden era.”
But that’s where the fairytale ends and Jobs admits “the companies have grown apart.”
While Apple went through its [sob] “near death experience,” Jobs says, “Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products,” like a moth to the flame.
Now, beyond working with Adobe for its Creative Suite products for Mac users, Jobs claims the firms have “few joint interests.” Like old high school sweethearts, torn in opposite directions.
But obviously in serious need of closure, and with passions still running high, Jobs can’t help but throw jibes at its old Pal, snorting derisively that the reason his company won’t allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads, is because the technology has “issues.” As do we all, Steve-o.
“Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true,” jeers Jobs childishly.
“Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc” he continues, sneering that while Adobe’s Flash products may be widely available, “this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe.” Takes one to know one, we suppose.
Meanwhile, Apple, the king of proprietary, plays the sympathy card with Jobs preaching that Apple “strongly believes that all standards pertaining to the web should be open.” The Jobs mob would rather use HTML5, CSS and JavaScript over Flash because they are more open. Forgive us for raising a skeptical eyebrow at these oh-so-pure intentions.
Like a Rottweiler with an iBone, Jobs then goes on to counter-attack Adobe’s repeated claims that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash.
“Almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads,” says Jobs who also points out the YouTube app does a fair job of delivering 40% of the web’s video to Apple iUsers.
Oh yes, not to mention the Vimeo app, the Netflix app, the ABC app, the CBS app, the CNN app, the Fox News app… Ok, ok, Jobs, we get the video picture, and it’s about as fair and balanced as that last app we mentioned.
“iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video,” he maintains, although why users would have to miss out on any video – not to mention a whole world of Porn – is still a sore point.
Next Jobs attacks the Adobe assertion Apple devices cannot play Flash games, saying that while this is true, he doesn’t see why it matters when there are over 50,000 games on the App Store. “Many of them are free,” says Jobs slightly disingenuously, considering a recent Distimo study showed only 25% of Apple’s apps were free. But, hey, let’s not get caught up with pesky things like numbers.
Adding another string to its anti-Flash bow, Apple also apparently believes Flash is unsafe, sighting a Symantec assertion that Flash had the worst security records in 2009.
The Tupolov of the tech world, “Flash is the number one reason Macs crash,” snarls Jobs, explaining that he simply won’t bring that risk to his iProducts. He simply can’t, you understand, it would be irresponsible. Like using an iPhone before the fasten seatbelts sign has been switched off.
But that’s not all, oh no! Flash’s performance and battery life is also called into question by Jobs who alleges that decoding video in software saps the device’s juices like Kryptonite, while H.264 decoders built straight onto the chips themselves are twice as efficient, offering up to 10 hours of super-powered playback.
Using a more touchy-feely tack, Jobs continues his tirade with the contention Flash “was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers.” And Jobs likes using his finger. Especially when talking to Adobe.
Flash “Rollovers,” in Steve’s not-so-humble opinion, should roll-over and die, whilst pop-up menus should pop off touchscreens where they don’t belong.
Most importantly, though, is Jobs’ disgust at the fact Adobe dares to want developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on Apple devices. Not only is it sickening to the duke of Cupertino, he actually knows how bad it would be “from painful experience.”
Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.
“Letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform,” says Jobs, who doesn’t like anything to come between Apple and its cash cow – the precious developers.
“If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features,” whines Stevey boy, ignoring his own hypocrisy and decrying that Apple simply “cannot be at the mercy of a third party.”
And even if Apple could be at the mercy of such a third party, it could certainly not abide by anything as repulsive as one supplying a *shudder* cross platform development tool like Flash, because that would mean developers might actually be able to create an app that works on a whole bunch of different handsets, and Apple simply cannot have that.
Of course, the official excuse is that the third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms and blah, blah, blah, but we see right through that one.
“Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice,” (not for iPods and men) says Jobs,
concluding that the mobile era is all about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas he sees
Flash falling short in.
Flash, he declares, simply isn’t necessary for the “tens of thousands of developers” ‘appily coding away to create “graphically rich applications, including games,” for Apple’s platform ONLY.
“New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too), according to Jobs, who condescendingly suggests Adobe “should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.”
Ouch. Why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Steve?
