Steve Jobs has published an open letter on the Apple site outlining why Flash is currently not used on iPhones, iPad etc...
Thoughts on Flash

Whilst he does bring some good points, and I agree that Flash Player on OS X is rubbish (at least on PowerPC models), I can't see this open letter helping matters - in fact it will probably just escalate things further. I just wish someone would bang both their heads together and come up with a proper solution, rather than all this finger pointing and playing the blame game - Adobe are no better is this department IMHO.

If Apple genuinely wanted Flash on the iPhone OS then there are plenty of Apple's own software engineers who could help Adobe write the software properly. Adobe have yet to produce a decent Flash Player on OS X that doesn't hog CPU cycles and make my laptop fans go into overdrive when playing video. They should stop bleating, pull their finger out and produce something that actually works better on computers first - then they can start to think about mobile platforms after that.

I think that was probably the idea.


What on earth ever gave you the impression that they did? They absolutely don't want Flash on the iPhone, for the reasons explained. If people use something like CS5 to make iPhone apps, then Apple lose the ability to modify the functionality those apps have available to them. They lose control, essentially. They absolutely do not wish to do that. If Flash was the fastest, most efficient system around, Apple still wouldn't want it on the iPhone. The fact it's a steaming pile of dung just gives Apple a convenient stick to beat it with.



So Apple should effectively help fund Adobe's development work which feeds into Adobe's rather than Apple's profits? Good luck suggesting that one at a board meeting.


The way things are going, mobile development will be a bigger profit centre than desktop development, especially for webcentric technologies.

Android's rise might change Apple's ways of doing things, not to mention RIM's great sales figures. Until now iphone was the only one proper touch-screen device so Apple could get away with pretty much anything, however more and more really good devices are coming on to markets. Apple will have to play nice...

Don't hold your breath. Really. There are already something like 50 million iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad devices in circulation and with the launch of the iPad 3G in the US today I'd be willing to bet they sell more iPad 3Gs in a weekend than Google have sold Nexus Ones this year (the Nexus one has had an absolute avalanche of press but it's actual sales have been nothing to write home about). Apple have gone from a standing start to outselling RiM in about three years - in a market that Rim effectively had to itself for two years before that - and RiM's next device (revealed this week) is yet another 'me too' iPhone clone which they tried before with the Storm and by God, that's a rubbish phone in virtually every way. Windows 7 phone won't even launch for six months even though they've shown it off already. By the time we get to that we'll have had iPhone OS 4.0 the iPhone 4 which, if the famed prototype is actually what it turns out to be, rather bridges the technology gap that's the only card the competition have had to play so far. Microsoft has abandoned the Courier project and HP have apparently dropped the Slate, even after Steve Ballmer showed it off on stage at CES making it look like a finished product. Nobody else has a tablet PC anywhere near the shop shelves meaning Apple will have at least months head start on everyone else - by the time some of the PC manufacturers get themselves into gear we'll be on the iPad version 2.

Apple aren't doing anything particularly brilliant here, it's just the competition apparently couldn't find their own arse with both hands and a detailed map.

At this point, the only company that stands a real chance (IMO) of taking on Apple in the mobile device space is probably Nokia, that has the market presence, technical ability and actual clout to go head to head. However they're faffing about still with Symbian devices that (in the iPhone scale of things) nobody actually wants instead of producing a focussed, modern product that might actually compete.

To be honest, the current mobile device market really really reminds me of the MP3 player market. There were MP3 players before the iPod. I actually owned a Creative one. There have been many other people making MP3 players since - Creative did, iRiver, Sony etc. But do people call them 'MP3 players' any more? Other than the BBC when stringently trying to avoid product endorsement, No. They mostly call them iPods, whether they actually are iPods or not. Apple simply own the market and anyone else is small fry. They did it by making products that were simple to use, looked good and, generally, worked as advertised. I've used Android phones and Windows mobile 6.5 phones and Blackberrys (I sysadmin mobile comms systems for a living) and you know what? They don't really work as advertised. They're not straightforward. They're not 'easy'. They're actually.. not very good, in the main. The spec numbers are really nice but when you try and use one you're tearing your hair out inside 10 minutes. I quite like the HTC HD2 and the Hero but on their best day they're only 'as good' as the iPhone, not in any way better, and the iPhone won't stay still for long.

Yes, maybe one day one of them will produce a device which to the lay user is more attractive than an Apple device. But by then, much like in the MP3 player market, Apple may have such a dominant hold on the market that it simply won't matter, the same way it wouldn't matter today if someone brought out a stonkingly good desktop OS because it simply isn't Windows...

It may not be too late for someone to compete with the iPhone. I honestly don't know. I do know the other major tech companies seem to be making a complete pig's ear of trying. And their window of opportunity is closing.

Wow, that is one long post and I can't possible address it all.

Apple outselling RIM? Are you sure you got your numbers right?
RIM sold 37m smartphones LAST YEAR!!!
You might want to look here for Q1/10 numbers (10.6m for RIM) http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS22322210
So 37m (2009) + 10.6m (2010) equals 50m of Iphone/ipod/ipad. How is that outselling RIm?
I don't think you got your numbers right, or maybe I misunderstood what you are trying to say.

RIM revealed Iphone clone this week? Again, are you sure?
They announced new Bold 9650 and Pearl 3g. NEITHER of them isn't anything like iphone, especially as they are not touchphones.
So what phone do yo mean?

Storm2 being rubbish
Well I have one myself any I love it to bits. Only thing I agree could on would be better are more apps available.

Regarding Nokia
If they keep pushing Symbian they will die out, simple as that. They will not survive in smartphones market...

Excuse me, I've become confused by two news reports I saw. One said Apple were now the biggest American phone company (but as it turns out, RiM are Canadian) and another which claimed Apple were now the biggest seller of smartphones, which may well be true depending on whether you'd count all Blackberrys as smartphones or not (I'm sure the relevant parties do or don't depending on whether it supports their position).


It was something in a story to do with the launch of Blackberry OS 6 rather than a specific phone model, might have been a device they haven't given a name to yet. I'll try and find the link.


Well fair enough but I'd say that's subjective. I've had to configure Storm 2's for clients and I find them pretty terrible compared to current HTC models or the 3GS.

Adobe needs to sort themselves out IMO. Flash on OS X is horrid, it drains my battery horribly...
Apple has just helped them out! By creating a new framework which will allow Flash to access the graphics unit more easily and reduce time spent on the main CPU. One caveat is that it'll only work on newer hardware, another is that it may be 10.6 only.
If (and this is a big if) Apple ports this framework to the iPhone OS, then Flash might stand a chance. But I don't think Apple will do this.

So what if Android is getting/has got Flash? I haven't met anyone who actually likes their Android phone all the time, they curse it far more often than one should curse a phone...Plenty of people bleating about how great they are on the net, but real life seems to tell a different story (just my experience).

Many people want Flash dead. It really only has a limited place on the Internet, and that is games. People hate Flash adverts. People hate Flash web sites. Many people agree that there are better alternatives to playing video.

My understanding of Adobe's Flash to iPhone app creator is that the app will be created as machine code, so it could be really efficient as an application. But as Jon said: it takes control out of Apple's hands, it relies on Adobe updating the functionality every time Apple add API's, and it means that Apple's developers are able to create for other devices other than the iPhone...Any why the hell would they want that!?

It's a completely spurious argument. It effectively says 'if you have any proprietary products at all you are totally bad' (and presumably by inference if you have open source products you are totally good). That kind of thinking doesn't help anybody who has to exist in the real world.

OK - so what I want now is a development environment which will let me create Flash-like things in HTML/CSS/JavaScript which doesn’t involve me doing a shed-load of coding.

There is Gordon, which is a JavaScript/HTML run-time thing which plays Flash files without the need for Flash, but it doesn’t do everything, and kind of defeats the object of the exercise.
http://wiki.github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/

I didn't respond to that because I don't care about slates but then I saw this:
Blackberry tablet is real
It makes sense that RIM would do this, especially aimed at corporate market. They already have great reputation and plenty of business orientated apps so this will find plenty of uses in corporate world.

I am not for a second suggesting that it will outsell ipad as it obviously won't, but I can see it being a success for RIM. It is good to see that RIM is trying something new so I hope it is not fake.

The difference is that Flash is free (gratis) and an unofficial standard of the web. This makes Adobe particularly powerful as they could impose different terms in their EULA and cripple many web sites and potentially stitch up many customers (the need for increased licence fees, serial numbers per installation, etc.).

People have paid into Apple, making an active choice to choose the proprietary software that Apple produce. If Apple changed their EULA it could bugger people about, but it probably can't get much worse (without a radical change), and it wouldn't effect such a huge ecosystem as the Internet.

Platform Control
May well be closer to the truth than anyone has previously got.