Hatred (or hate) is a deep and emotional extreme dislike, directed against a certain object or class of objects. The objects of such hatred can vary widely, from inanimate objects or animals, to oneself or other people, entire groups of people, people in general, existence, or the whole world. Though not necessarily, hatred is often associated with feelings of anger and disposition towards hostility against the objects of hatred. – Wikipedia
Does Apple hate flash? Or should we say, does Steve Jobs hate flash?
Many companies, including Adobe, Netgear, Hewlett-Packard (HP), etc, have a vested interest in the iOS not being the top dog in the market. One major distinguishing factor between those companies product is that they will run Flash applications, and the iOS devices won’t… So, obviously they are more than willing to make their products seem to be more “open” and user centric devices by claiming that Flash is a necessary feature…
But are they correct? Who do we believe?
Battery Issues?
Ars Technica has shown in their testing of the 11″ MacBook Air, that having Flash running can drop battery life by up to 33%. Adobe has indicated that this was due to that version of Flash not being optimized for that particular hardware…
So, for the best Flash Performance Apple needs to vet their hardware before Adobe, to make sure that there isn’t a significant CPU load / Power drain? How much lead time should Apple give Adobe? 6 months? A year? And how much time is enough? Macintosh Users have been complaining for years that Adobe Flash just isn’t as responsive, and feature rich as the Windows version. Adobe hasn’t seemed to care until the last year or two…
Does this seem reasonable to anyone? While Adobe does have a point, until recently Adobe was not able to add a level hook to the GPU on the Macintosh… But Adobe seems willing to allow the Macintosh users to sit, while they ignore the platform and solve the issues that exist on the Windows OS.
Security?
A Websense alert from May 29 explains that the Adobe Flash vulnerability is being exploited through drive-by downloads on many infected Web sites. “Websense ThreatSeeker has been tracking these malicious web sites and have discovered numerous reputable web sites that are now unwilling participants, infecting their very own visitors. These sites are from various industries such as government, education, healthcare, finance, media, and entertainment. This attack also attempts to exploit other popular vulnerabilities such as MDAC, RealPlayer, and various ActiveX controls. - PCWorld
No one can force Adobe to release an updated version of Flash. If they could, well, the iPad probably would not be as popular as it is… After Adobe has never missed a deadline…  Or have they?  Adobe had publicly said that Flash would ship on a smart phone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and then they said the second half of 2010. So how do you rely on Adobe ‘s release schedule, when they are so fluid?  So how do you manage security issues dealing with Adobe Flash, if you can’t depend on Adobe meeting their own self-imposed deadlines?
Proprietary?
1. In marketing-speak, superior; implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of the company’s own hardware or software designers.
2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor who can inflate service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the customer in.
Well, Adobe Flash is manufactured by one company, using non-open standards, and locks the creator into an Adobe product. Apple admits to having closed systems too, but it prefers open standards when possible. Examine WebKit, LaunchD, the contributions back to FreeBSD, and more…
I am not insisting that there is a conspiracy theory behind this. Could it simply be that Steve Jobs, and thus Apple, believes that this is the right thing to do and they have evidence enough to support themselves?
What do you think?