Flash is dead? Thank Steve Jobs
What a difference a year makes. In 2010, Apple’s CEO was vilified by the haters for saying what everyone knew was true — Adobe’s bloated multimedia middleware would never run well on mobile, is woefully insecure and uses resources like a Hummer driving Republican. The haters still hate, but most everything else has changed.
Back on April 29, Apple published Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash”. The response was immediate and overwhelming — the iPhone and iPad would fail because they didn’t support Flash.
Steve Jobs was vilified for bringing politics into technology. Fundamentally, he was accused blocking Flash to kill a competitor, that the effort was doomed to failure because it wasn’t based on reason or market realities.
Last quarter, iPhone and iPad sales rose more than 100 percent year-on-year. Further, the iPhone is best selling smartphone brand worldwide and the iPad has yet to encounter a serious competitor.
So much for mobile Flash as a competitive advantage.
Seriously, what’s the battery life of dual-core LTE Android phone running Flash? No one knows because you can’t unplug it.
Quality is the quantity
Even more telling, have you seen the reviews of Amazon’s HTML5 only Kindle Cloud Reader? It’s really, really smooth on every platform, not just mobile. That means Android, iPhone, Mac, PC, whatever and you need neither a plugin, just an HTML5 compatible browser, nor nervously check your device’s battery.
Who else has gone HTML5? Facebook. The world’s biggest social network is in the midst of migrating its mobile development effort to HTML5 with 750 million users in tow.
In fact, their first real iPad play is HTML5 powered. It took them awhile, but they slogged it out and delivered without any Adobe multimedia middleware malaise.
Who needs Flash? Certainly not Android users and you can thank Steve Jobs for that…
What’s your take?
August 13th, 2011
This article was written so badly I had to stop half way through.
August 13th, 2011
I for one, enjoyed the article from beginning to end.
I run 2 repair shops in New Orleans and one of them is a smartphone repair shop. While I prefer the iPhone, I’m no fanatic- I’m actually very hard to please and feel that the greatest smartphone has yet to be released.
Because we deal with all kinds of phones (not just iPhones) I invested in an Android to see what all the hype was. After all, they’re market share is growing so they must be doing something right? So I thought… The damn Android is ALWAYS on the charger. I have to charge it every single night. Other than that, the phone is tolerable- it sort of makes phone calls. It definitely answers calls. I don’t even have to take the phone out of my pocket to answer a call. Somehow my pants have learned to use the “slide to unlock” feature.
I’m selling my Android immediately. That’s what I get for thinking the grass is greener on the other side. Hello again, iPhone ;)
August 13th, 2011
FLASH IS DEAD.
August 14th, 2011
LOL. Yes, my Android 2.2 tablet only ran for a scant 4 hours on wifi streaming 2 old classic movie on Flash.
Android has multiple versions and runs on a wide variety of hardware. Froyo and above with 512 Meg of RAM supports Flash in it’s Linux kernel which is a lot more efficient.
The author is correct about Flash having a lot of issues, but having the option to access all the content over the last 5 years doesn’t make me a hater.
The iPhone and iPad are excellent devices, but if they are so perfect why is Jail Breaking so popular?
August 14th, 2011
@aquaadverse
No one is jailbrealink iOS for flash :-)
August 15th, 2011
lets wait for the jailbreak community to give life again to flash:)
August 26th, 2011
Flash is dead! Doesn’t anyone think for themselves anymore. Steve Jobs is a businessman who could develop a flash compatible machine in his sleep. It’s MARKETING you fools. So what if flash blows my machine up. If I buy an Ipad and choose to use flash, then my peril, but I wna the choice. Think for yourselves rather than thinking it’s intelligent to parrot the words of an incredible saleman- Steve Jobs (he should sell real estate in Japan’s earthquake zone cause I’m sure all the Apple puppy dogs will follow. Idiots!
September 6th, 2011
Steve Jobs is a dying technology. HA HA
October 20th, 2011
Well in fact, Steve Jobs is dead, not Flash.
October 31st, 2011
Flash websites although large, truly does liven any website up. Look at how many people use sites like Wix to build websites. Hopefully with the Steve down under, Apple can re-asses the situation.
November 11th, 2011
It’s not Flash that sucks the life out of your batteries: it’s the fact there are a million bad Flash developers out there disregarding their memory and not cleaning up after themselves. This never got past Steve’s thick skull.
May 19th, 2013
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