Reality Check- "Apple vs Adobe: real reasons Flash is banned from iPads"
Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 2:52PM 
After posting my iPad review, I was surprised how many people responded to me thankful for the update on the new technology and my thoughts on it. I was also a little surprised that a small, but vocal group of Apple acolytes demanded that I rescind anything but love towards Apple's decision to block Flash from being allowed on the iPad platform.
I found it funny, and somewhat telling, of Mac proponents who defend Apple's demand that Flash is bad. As an application wrapper and GUI strategy for websites- they have a point. Flash games and applications add overhead. No argument there. However, Flash as a multi-media player is simply something that cannot be ignored. One friend of mine, who is brilliant in most areas of life, could not believe that I would blaspheme against the "word" handed down from the great prophet Steve Jobs. For those who missed it, Steve Jobs posted his completely "unbiased" review of the technical limitations of Flash. You can find that "letter" posted on Apple's website at http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ . I encourage you to read it and consider his arguments. If you are a technologist, please put away your cynicism and sarcasm for a moment (I will save some for you for later, don't worry).
Here are the points that Jobs (Apple) seems to miss in the discussion:
- The vast majority of web 2.0 audio and video is delivered on/within web sites via Flash. It is the defacto standard on hundreds of thousands of sites, including MOST of the major sites dealing with media.
- Not supporting flash (as a media player) does NOT necessarily mean you are using less CPU! What it means is that you are running ANOTHER media player. Any site that uses flash for audio delivery (just about every one online) will now spew out mp3's that must be played by another application that can handle a stream, decode it and produce the audio. The same goes for video. What is going to happen- sites are going to just spew mp3s out, and they will be picked up (in the iPad) by Quicktime. Oh glory... imagine how much CPU load and battery life you will save using Quicktime instead of Flash for audio. And it gets even worse for video. Flash as a media player actually very good performance and load comparisons, that simply are far exceeded by Quicktime.
- HTML5 is a nice thought, but when tested in scenarios of true "pear-to-pear" (hate to use the "apples-to-apples" terminology and biased our results in this particular discussion) it is not guaranteed to be faster, lower CPU load or better battery use than Flash. In some cases, it is actually slower and more cumbersome than Flash for media right now. A good comparison testing evaluation has been done and posted online, which you can review for yourself at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/does_html5_really_beat_flash_surprising_results_of_new_tests.php Clearly, there are times when Flash performs worse than HTML5, and times when the reverse is true. Don't take my word for it. Go to YouTube. They now support viewing videos on either their standard flash or new HTML5 formats. Test it out yourself. In defense of HTML5, it is new technology and should get faster as browsers optimize their engines, but saying carte blanch that HTML5 is more efficient and lower load at delivering audio/video content than flash just isn't true.
- Apple itself has purposefully handcuffed Flash on its OS platforms, so that the software can't compete fairly for performance against its embedded media presentation solutions. Simply put, one of the primary ways you gain efficiencies on media play on devices (laptop, desktop or mobile) is to utilize hardware acceleration for decoding. Apple allows its own Quicktime and Safari applications to access hardware acceleration through the OS directly, but does NOT allow access to the required APIs for that same hardware acceleration to be made useful by Adobe Flash or other media rendering applications. This is a simple technical issue, and since Apple controls it, they are blocking any other software companies from competing with them in the media play space to maintain their monopoly on the iPhone/iPad OS and advantage on the OSx/Safari platform.
- The other significant problem with Apple's refusal to let Flash run on iPad is that Apple loses monopoly access to a huge revenue area- media streaming. If Flash is allowed to run on iPads, the access to Hulu, and other services negates the need to buy episodes of programming or video off of iTunes video. Oh really?! Ya, exactly. Strangely enough, Apple wants to make more money for itself. Maybe the "net neutrality" mantra doesn't apply when Apple can't take its share of the money that might be had. This point is well articulated on Cult of Mac's editor blog at http://www.cultofmac.com/adobe-theres-no-flash-on-ipad-because-apple-is-protecting-content-revenue/28564
- It is about CONTROL and business strategy that Apple has started the conflict between Flash and HTML5, by not allowing Flash on the iPad. It is not a technical issue, and to say so flies in the face of both technical realities, and the obvious nature of free-market competition that drives all parties to improve. This is a brief summary claim, and please don't accept it without doing some research. I encourage you to read this good article from expert Jeremy Allaire at TechCrunch. http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/05/the-future-of-web-content-html5-flash-mobile-apps/ Jeremy has definitive understanding of both Flash and HTML5 that fuels his current work, and his explanation of the controversy is refreshingly non-partisan.
Let me be clear, I am not advocating for Flash *over* HTML5. I am saying, simply, support BOTH Flash and HTML5 on the iPad. The simple fact that websites often intend to deliver media from their pages means that any mechanism a user can engage to play that media will cause CPU/battery load on the system platform/device. Users won't be running Flash when they are doing other things with the device (ie. when they are not viewing media). But whenever media is being delivered, and it is on a site that delivers it in Flash, then the Flash player (or some other media delivery/play model) has to engage and use up CPU cycles. This is a requirement of presenting the media and will happen using Flash, Quicktime or HTML5. Stop defending Apple's angst against Adobe by pretending there is a technical reason for it.
To even go a step further, I hope to see a day when things such as HTML5 (actually open standards) do supplant the proprietary technologies & services/gateways such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft IE and yes, even Apple's app store. I would like it to be a wonderfully open world. But to have Apple purposefully block Flash is not a vote "for" HTML5. It is a clear competitive swing against Adobe. But worse, it tells the thousands of companies and providers who use the Flash technology right now this brilliant message from Apple and Jobs: "Screw you all you people with websites using media! We'd rather you dumped the competitor media technology, so that we can make money delivering media to your customers. Alternatively, if you want to play in our world please come on over to our proprietary app development world on the iPad. Either way, we control the flow of information and the exchange of money. Gotta love us!"
Ultimately, whatever other solutions, including HTML5, are employed to deliver and display media are going to use just as much CPU and battery as Flash, that has years of real-world engineering already behind it. Personally, I like Apple and I like Adobe. Both companies offer some great products. It would be nice if companies would take truthful positions based on technical reality, rather than use rhetoric to base their arguments in debate.
Happy surfing, iPad-ing and Flash-ing :)
Kim Gentes
Reader Comments (4)
Thanks for that article, Kim! Great to hear this perspective.
Thank you for a clear view on the ipad /iPhone. The fact that I cannot acess things are in flash is the reason I am looking at a blackberry type device to replace my iPhone.
Seem to remember hearing the same arguments when they removed floppy discs. They have decided they want to support a certain technology and they have the right to do so. Why do people think this is at all interesting?
As for using a blackberry device vs an iPhone, there are many good reasons, but if you are seeking a satisfactory web browsing experience I, frankly, wouldn't buy either.
Scott, your critique "Seem to remember hearing the same arguments when they removed floppy discs" sounds almost as silly as it really is. Floppy discs? You aren't really arguing something with any facts, and making such a comparison is a red-herring. I never argued that Apple doesn't have the "right" to do whatever they want. I simply said that the technology explanations that Apple gave are partially true, partially false. Apple is revived by its recent success, and well it should be. And its using that success to go for the throat of all the entities it saved up its animosity for. Can't say I really blame them. But, to try to say that Job's letter about Flash is a technical expose' of the real reasons it isn't using Flash is false. To go along with their newfound success, they would win many other supporters if they just plain said "we don't like Adobe, they screwed us before, and now its time for payback". Of course, they couldn't say that publicly, but giving false reasons for something and calling it technical reality has nothing to do with leaving a dead floppy disc format in the past.
I am glad you chimed in with your opinion, though. You asked "why do people think its interesting?" People can smell phony crap for miles away, Scott. Apple could have walked through this looking mean, but still smelling clean. They chose not to. They chose to give phony responses to some simple questions. They could have answered clearly and admitted their reasons, but they chose not to. People think its interesting because they smell a rat. Plain and simple.