Farewell, Flash on Mobile
With yesterday’s ‘leak’ to ZDNet and today’s formal announcement by Adobe that it will cease development of Flash on mobile, Android zealots have lost one of the most common arguments made against Apple’s iOS platform, notwithstanding the fact that Adobe failed to produce a reasonably useful implementation of it on any mobile platform despite repeated claims to the contrary for over three years.
A little history
Of course, Flash on iOS specifically has been a bone of contention for unwavering iPhone fans on the one side and proponents of Android’s self-proclaimed ‘openness’ on the other for a number of years. The lingering conflict came to a head in April 2010, when Apple published a piece by Steve Jobs called Thoughts on Flash. It’s interesting to note the personal nature in which this was presented. Very few communications that were officially published by Apple were attributed to Steve. In fact, going back through the last few years of releases, I can’t find anything else beyond his August 2011 resignation as CEO, a copy of Steve’s letter informing staff of his medical leave in January, and another letter addressing health concerns in January 2009.
Other “open letters”, such as the July 2010 piece addressing antenna issues with the iPhone 4 were simply attributed to ‘Apple’
The Open Letters
As for the content of Steve’s Thoughts on Flash:
[…] Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?
Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.
That letter prompted a bizarro personal response from Adobe’s Cofounders and Chairmen. The piece speaks only of free, open markets and PostScript and PDF’s success, but does not address any of the very specific concerns Steve outlined in his piece. The two then go on to accuse Apple of “[undermining] the next chapter of the web”, and imply that they are trying to control the Web. Ironic, given that Adobe has been tyring to force Flash on the Web while Apple is trying to force it away – competitive forces at work.
The End
Over a year passed with little change, until yesterday ZDNet broke the news that Adobe would cease work on its mobile Flash runtime.
Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.”
Earlier today, Adobe confirmed the news in a longwinded release that really could have just said “We’re shuttin’ ‘er down”.
Though porn, car and restaurant site developers are no doubt in a panic over this move that sets a clear signal that Flash – on any platform – is on the way out, an accessible Web based on standards came a significant step closer to eventual reality today.
