Steve Jobs and Apple hate Adobe Flash too much

Have you ever wonder why Apple CEO, Steve Jobs hates Flash(Adobe) so much? We haven’t done this till now, but we think is something strange between two big names.

All started in 2007 when Apple launched iPhone mobile device and same time with him, the iPhone OS. From the beginning they refuse to comment about any Flash support or things related to it, but few years after it seems they couldn’t resist and say directly: we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Apple made a clever move in 2008 with iTunes, which became the unique place to download official apps for Apple gadgets. Unofficial Apple blocked any third-party software from running unless you hack(“jailbreak“) your iPhone that could destroy your warranty or even ruin the device. At that time they claimed they are doing this(iTunes) for a reason: to have secure apps, free from viruses , spam and malware.

This was maybe a real basis, but they forgot to tell us that almost every download will cost money and Apple will only have to gain from this move. It was simple to understand that if you want to use/own an iPhone you either have to “jailbreak” it on your own risk or you have to buy apps and other stuffs from iTunes.

For developers wasn’t also easy to make apps for Apple as soon as they have the right to accept or refuse any soft product if it doesn’t comply with their rules. Strange apps as Wobble iBoobs, Baby Shaker which were considered a little sexy or violent appeared on iTunes while apps which involved public figures, even if they were used in comic books, were denied.

Same story happened after iPad release which is also locked, so you can’t use third party apps, even this is a tablet, not a phone. Let’s not forget the microSD card extension made unavailable on all Apple devices.

In a poor world where you could feed a whole country with 1 mil $, Steve figured out how to be more selfish and make more and more money. The recent “innovation” was announced during iPhone 4.0 OS and was named iAd. It’s easy to figure out from the name what this means->ads on iPhone. Steve told us the bright side-it would be an outstanding experience. This will be surely a plus for Apple and developers of the ads, but a minus for other ad platforms which use flash and can’t provide their services properly.

At the end of iPhone 4.0 OS press event, Apple allowed a little Q&A session with journalists, where Steve Jobs also participated. During the meeting one of the question was:

Is there going to be any change in Apple’s position on Java or Flash on version four?

and the response was short and easy to guess

NO

This was the point where everyone started to ask how could this not be possible and weeks after Apple couldn’t resist anymore and release a letter called “Thoughts on Flash” signed by Steve Jobs itself.

Letter was full of accuses :

• Adobe Flash is not an open source as HTML, CSS and JavaScript are.
• The lack of Flash doesn’t affect so much the users, because H.264 is more modern than Flash and is viewable on Apple products.
• Apple accused Flash for reliability, security and performance saying that Flash is the reason that cause Macs to crash.
• Flash drain battery when playing videos while the modern decoder, H.264 can play them for a long period.
• Flash was created for PC and it needs to be modified in order to run on touch devices, but once again Apple wants to use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.

This intelligent move seeks to somehow lay low Adobe Flash, but if Apple can resist Adobe(Flash), we are not so sure it will resist Google(Chrome) or Microsoft(Silverlight) platforms.

Final interesting thing is that Google announced Flash to be available on Android 2.2 version, which will be released during 2010, while Apple could face antitrust investigation(for iAd platform and Flash).