|
Suppose Apple and Adobe had quietly worked together to make sure there would be a Flash version that worked adequately on iPad before it was announced/shipped (ok, with a setting to disable it should one wish to). I fail to see how that would not be in the interest of consumers and web designers everywhere, and of course Adobe would like that as well. Apple might even sell a few more iPads to people like me who know what Flash is and would like to have that option. Lovely, everyone wins except for would-be iPad competition.
But it didn't happen. Why not? Some theories:
- Apple doesn't think they need Flash support to have iPad be a successful product and is willing to sacrifice some sales in order to reduce dependencies on things they don't control
- it turns out that it is really difficult to port Flash to such a resource-limited platform while maintaining full compatibility with legacy SWFs, and throwing more programmers ('lazy' or otherwise) at the problem won't get it done any quicker ("The Mythical Man Month"). Apple is being as helpful as they can be, but it's really up to Adobe to deliver.
- for some reason, Apple is unwilling to give Adobe access to the secret inner workings of iPad (or even a prototype to work with) leaving Adobe to laboriously reverse engineer everything about it; meanwhile Apple has set unreasonably high expectations for performance and functionality before they will agree to put Flash on iPad or iPhone.
- Steve Jobs has an irrational hatred of all things Adobe and his minions are too cowed to present him with the business case that justifies a cooperative approach.
- Apple just wants to sell more iTunes video and it is in their interest to maintain roadblocks to other channels (Flash, Silverlight, RealPlayer etc.).
Anyway, I've seen nothing to suggest that Adobe has given up work on iPhone/iPad Flash. But it does seem that Apple is being less cooperative (than, say, Google with Android), at least from what little they have said publicly.
|