Dont want Flash

After all the hype this morning and the delivery of the iPhone OS 4.0 preview there were some interesting posts and comments made about the Apple v. Flash debate.

Conspiracy theories and thoughts about why Apple don’t want Flash on the iPhone range from the rational to the big company domination points of view. I see myself being more rational about these theories. Some I have come across don’t seem right.

Adobe want to lock developers into Flash and commoditize everything else as Flash-delivery devices. Apple want to commoditize applications and lock developers into their APIs.

via YCominator Comment - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1250946

I put this comment in the “big company domination” conspiracy category. Sure Apple is a big company that has a lot of control over technology and the mobile space. However, just because they are big doesn’t mean they are evil.

Iv’e said it many times why Flash and the iPhone OS don’t mix, it comes down to performance. In the keynote this morning Steve made a key point of why they don’t use Flash, in an indirect manner.

Whilst demoing the iAd service he mentioned that the Ad’s when you opened them are HTML5 and are animated with effects. The preview showed off some pretty good animations with effects like shadows and light sources. I believe this is the reason that Flash isn’t on the iPhone, HTML5 does it better.

Why would Apple go and get in bed with Adobe when it can use true open standards and use a language that the native OS can support and optimise. Plus lets not forget that to generally build Flash executables you need Flash CS5 and that costs money when a text editor and some knowledge can get you a HTML5 page for free.

In closing, what Apple is doing is supporting HTML5 which is a more open standard plus it’s free to develop and can be controlled by the system for better performance. Simple as that.

Edit: I skewed off at the end a little bit. When mentioning HTML5 I was talking about why the iAd service uses HTML5 for making Adverts. I combined 2 bits of rage I had at the time of posting this. But at the beginning I think I was clear in saying that the views that Apple is trying to dominate are the ramblings of idiots. Its more a case of Apple looking after the user and making sure their experience is free of flaws and bugs in turn selling more devices thanks to verbal referrals from HAPPY users.

If you have an iPhone think about this. How much personal data is on that device? All your Contacts, SMS’s, Call Records, Emails, Notes, Photos, Videos, Web History, Passwords?

Now what would happen if someone got access to all that information? Well you would have your identity stolen. All of that information is more than enough for someone to create a duplicate of you and start taking out loans in your name.

Yep it’s a scary thought. If my iPhone was stolen I would run to the nearest computer to perform a remote wipe from MobileMe.

So what happens when you introduce a platform that anyone can develop or publish some code into an executable/SWF file put it on the web (by hacking it onto a popular site) and then have your device then browse that page. Yep, if an exploit exists your device will be owned.

This is the issue that Flash can not overcome. And a reason we can speculate of why Apple is not adding it to their devices.

So what if Flash actually made it onto the iPhone. We’ll you would have 42.48 million devices walking around with all this personal information ready, waiting. Hackers and Identity Theif’s would jump at the chance to be apart of the biggest gold rush of available personal information. So where would you target?

A native application? Nope. Apple checks every one before shipping and to get an App on the store you need to be verified and have a CCard.

By stealing the device? Plausible although MobileMe with its tracking and remote wipe (also available on MS Exchange for business) can stop the theifs in their tracks.

Flash, easy to develop and no moderation required? YES. There is no Apple filter here and anything could waltz in and get what they want, without you even knowing!

So there is a very big case on why Flash should NEVER EVER be on a personal mobile device.

It has become the multimedia Swiss army knife of the Internet, until now.

Flash is just not needed any more. Nor is it needed to be supported by mobile devices. Here’s some quick points why mobile devices or tablets dont need Flash.

1. For most Flash objects there is an alternative. Exhibit A: revision3.com has multiple video encodings that dont require Flash to be able to use the site.
2. Flash can be slow, memory hoging and is not controllable by the system. With Flash running its own code there is no way the browser can manage what it’s doing. This leads to slowness, jittering and crashes.
3. Flash requires the Flash plug-in on the device. One thing extra that takes up space on a device limited on available disk space.

And here comes the main kicker.

Flash is on the way of being out-dated and replaced. Yes, using Flash for video playback will slowly disappear. Why?

HTML 5. The new HTML 5 schema includes the lovely <video> tag. This tag doesn’t need Flash or even a Quicktime plug-in. No all it needs is a web browser and the rest is taken care of.

The browser will use its own player to play the media it is given. Optimised for the browser, built by the browser or OS developers and 100% jitter and flawless playback.

That’s the focus on video. Check back for more information why Advertising and Games will soon be bailing from the Flash boat.