Steve Jobs pretty much confirmed the rumors that the iPhone would not support Flash during his keynote at WWDC 2007 by stating that the only way developers will be able to create applications for the iPhone is to use, as he put it, "an innovative new way to create applications for mobile applications". Specifically, HTML and JavaScript (or "Web 2.0 + AJAX" as stated in the keynote using buzzwords).
The Apple, eat your own dog food! (Or, “On iPhone half-truths and Flash on iPhone facts.”) article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
Innovative? New?
HTML dates back to the early 1990s, JavaScript to 1995 and XHTTPRequest to 2002 or so.
(Steve, Apple truly does make new and innovative things. Don't water down the meaning of those words by applying them to what is essentially a cop-out to providing a true developer solution and an open platform for the iPhone.)
No mention of Flash == no Flash?
Bill Perry from Adobe got his iPhone at launch and proceeded to test it out with Flash and Flex sites and confirmed, predictably, that Safari on iPhone does not support Flash. The interesting thing is that you can't install the Flash Player yourself.
In his keynote, Steve mentions that the iPhone has "the full Safari inside it". This is not true. The full Safari supports Flash. The iPhone, as Bill's results confirm, has a crippled version of Safari in it that doesn't even allow you to install the Flash Player on to the device yourself. If Steve's comment at the keynote is true and the iPhone does have the "full Safari engine" in it, then we can only surmise that Flash support was deliberately blocked. This, on a system that does support other plug-in technologies like PDF and Quicktime.
I don't know personally who dropped the ball here. Was it Apple, or Adobe? I know that if I was Adobe, I would be jumping through hoops to get the Flash Player on the device with the most hype this year. If Adobe dropped the ball by insisting on receiving the high sums it normally charges mobile phone operators for porting the Flash Player, then it took a very short-sighted decision. If Apple wasn't interested then it gave up the chance to bring truly interactive third-party applications to the iPhone while still controlling exactly the level of access it was comfortable in granting to the core system.
iPhone for developers: Sweet?
In the keynote, Scott Forstall, VP iPhone Software, demoes a very simple address book application written in HTML that apparently took them one person month and under 600 lines of code to build. I wasn't impressed at all. Although Scott mentions that it looks and feels exactly like the built in address book, it doesn't. For example, when he scrolls the returned addresses on the web application, the whole HTML page scrolls up as opposed to the built-in address book, where the address entry box stays on screen and only the addresses scroll.
It also does not have the same look and feel as the web application is made up of several pages that are loaded and rendered like traditional web pages, whereas the built-in address book is made up of screens that transition from one to the next using built-in animations.
The integration that Apple speaks of involves clicking a telephone number to make a call, clicking on an email address to bring up a compose screen, and clicking a street address to bring up the built-in Google maps application. So, basically, the integration in the iPhone is one-way integration. It boils down to the ability to launch three built-in applications.
iPhone for developers: Well, we have a browser...
To summarize, the iPhone includes a web browser that will render your web applications. In addition to the standard functionality provided by the browser, Apple will provide you with three, one-way hooks into the system. Those three hooks appear to be as open as Apple is willing to get about the iPhone in the first version. That's a very closed system, indeed. And definitely not a platform.
(Remember, most phones today have web browsers that will render your web applications. The only piece of functionality that Apple is providing is the ability to make a call, launch an email compose screen and launch the Google Maps application to a pre-determined street address.)
That said, without having touched an iPhone myself (I will have to wait until the end of the year at least before they are available here in the UK, hopefully under 3G plans via multiple operators), I am interested in seeing how much developer adoption the iPhone actually gets. I am also interested in whether or not developers will see through the reality distortion field on this one and start demanding a more open platform from the iPhone.
I am also interested in seeing just how much Flash is supported through Quicktime in the iPhone. Read more about that on Jesse's blog.
Apple, eat your own dog food!
At the end of the day, however, the proof is in the pudding, so I ask:
Steve, how many of the iPhone's own applications did Apple write in HTML + JavaScript?
Any?
If not, why not?
Surely, if this is the "sweet" (and only) solution you're providing for developers, shouldn't you be using it to create your own applications? If you're not using this to build your own applications, isn't that hypocritical of you?
Eat your own dog food, Steve. Or, if the dog food doesn't taste too good, maybe get some that does so that we can all enjoy it!
Update: Some thoughts from Wil Shipley on the same topic. Favorite quotes:
What I'm not willing to do is starting programming in AJAX, as Steve so gleefully announced we should do at the (non-nondisclosured) WWDC keynote this year. What you might not have heard, if you only saw the video online, were the moans of the developers in the room when he announced this "no-SDK" SDK... if this AJAX thing was just a trial balloon, as some have theorized, then Steve should have had Jimmy Page up there, because it flew like a lead zeppelin.
I don't trust any "SDK" made by a company that won't use it themselves. Where are all of Apple's AJAX apps for the iPhone? Anyone? (*chirp*) The iPhone apps are not written in JavaScript -- or at least no JavaScript I know. Show me the secret JavaScript commands to get at all that CoreAnimation goodness you guys use, and to get at the Bluetooth and 802.11 and multitouch and local storage, and then maybe... well, no, actually, I still don't want to write code in JavaScript.
Us programming in AJAX while Apple programs in real OS X is basically a case of Apple not eating its own dogfood, except that JavaScript isn't dogfood, it's dog shit.
The Apple, eat your own dog food! (Or, “On iPhone half-truths and Flash on iPhone facts.”) article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
I have yet to see the point of having Flash on my phone. For the last few years I have paid more to have a phone that has Flash on it and I have never used it. Its not that I am trying to not use it but rather I have just not seen anything of relevance to me built in Flash. Nick Gerig built about the only Flash mobile app that I have thought it cool – the AmiGO – and that is the only Flash lite app that I can think of. You would think after all these years there would be more?
How many Flash apps do you use on a daily basis on your mobile?
So the question is why should Apple integrate a technology that is clearly not leading the mobile market? HTML, JavaScript & AJAX are all solutions where they can control the rendering and behaviour in Safari but they have no control of Flash’s rendering. If they supported Flash they would have to rely on Adobe, who clearly is not demonstrating a desire to lead the mobile market. Lets be honest here – Flash for mobile is very limiting.
I know I personally don’t care if Flash works on the iPhone or not. I want a phone that works well and that I enjoy using. I know that I will get that with the iPhone.
[...] YouTube Link to Article ajax Apple, eat your own dog food! (Or, “On iPhone half-truths and Flash on iPhone facts.”) » Posted at Aral Balkan on Sunday, July 01, 2007 Steve Jobs pretty much confirmed the rumors that the iPhone would not support Flash during his keynote at WWDC 2007 by stating that the only way … 2.0 + AJAX” as stated in the keynote using buzzwords). Innovative? New? HTML dates back View Entire Article » [...]
[...] YouTube Link to Article steve jobs Apple, eat your own dog food! (Or, “On iPhone half-truths and Flash on iPhone facts.”) » Posted at Aral Balkan on Sunday, July 01, 2007 Steve Jobs pretty much confirmed the rumors that the iPhone would not support Flash during his keynote at WWDC 2007 by stating that the only way … is that you can’t install the Flash Player yourself. In his keynote, Steve mentions that the iPhone … the Flash Player on to the device yourself. If Steve’s comment at the keynote is true View Entire Article » [...]
[...] YouTube Link to Article google Apple, eat your own dog food! (Or, “On iPhone half-truths and Flash on iPhone facts.”) » Posted at Aral Balkan on Sunday, July 01, 2007 Steve Jobs pretty much confirmed the rumors that the iPhone would not support Flash during his keynote at WWDC 2007 by stating that the only way developers will be able to create applications for the iPhone is to use, as he put it, “an innovative new way to create applications for mobile applications”. Specifically, HTML and JavaScript (or “Web 2 View Entire Article » [...]
Whilst Flash on the iPhone would be quite cool, how exactly do you envision it working?
The mobile Safari browser is excellent in terms of panning and zooming HTML pages. From what I have seen, this is somewhat based on div tags and the like, so the browser knows vaguely what is contained within the area where you tap.
Once Flash is introduced then we have a problem – it is an external plug-in, and the browser has no idea of what is going on inside of it – as far as Safari is concerned, its a single blob. Hence, effectively zooming in and panning around a Flash application could be quite problematic on the iPhone, especially as you are dealing with content which will also have some level of interactivity.
Without a customized version of the Flash Player, I don’t see this working in a way which also delivers a decent user experience.
I can see it happening eventually, but top of my list is for 3rd party dashboard widgets or cocoa applications to make it to the phone.
For me iPhone is one giant apotheosis of buzzword.
It doesn’t have:
- Java (!!!)
- external memory (4/8Gigs are same enough as “640kB for everyone”;))
- A2DP profile support (bye bye bluetooth headphones)
- MMS (sic!)
- UMTS (3G)
- replacable battery
- you can’t change SIM card by yourself!
So in Europe, it’s completly obsolete piece of “sweet”. Maybe some americans will be happy with this 2/2,5G device, but in 3G times, with video conferentions, high speed internet (not WiFi!) I think this is outdated, beautiful toy.
If Apple does not update it’s features it can’t beat today’s S60v3 smartphones. Of course, you can say, that not everyone need those functions. BUT iPhone is created to be mainstream, modern smartphone.
@Niqui:
I agree with you regarding Flash Lite. And, to answer your question, I use exactly zero Flash Lite applications on my mobile phone on a daily basis.
I do hope that Adobe realizes that it is losing the game when it comes to Flash on mobile. It’s currently nothing more than a curiosity and I firmly believe that Adobe has to change its current mindset and become far more aggressive in its efforts to get Flash Lite on handsets (and add features that developers can easily access using technologies like J2ME) if Flash is to ever reach the sort of ubiquity that it enjoys on the web.
My post, however, has to do more with the general level of developer support in the iPhone, not just Flash support. Basically, what Apple is saying is “here, we have a browser, write web applications. Oh yes, and we’ll let you (a) make a phone call, (b) launch a compose screen for writing an email, and (c) launch the built in Google Maps application with a pre-defined street address to show.” That’s it. That’s the full extend of how open the iPhone is. (That’s really very, very closed.)
Compare that to how developers can create applications for nearly all other handsets using J2ME, Flash, etc., and it becomes clear that Apple really doesn’t want anyone else creating applications for the iPhone.
I would, of course, as a Flash developer, love to see Flash on the iPhone. But, even more than that, I’d like to see the iPhone as an open platform that developers can extend with their own applications. This, at least in version 1, doesn’t appear to be the case.
The ideal solution for the iPhone would be for Safari to render Flash exactly as it does on the web (in-line). Standalone Flash support would be great too, and would allow for far greater integration with the device, but initially it would be great if the browser at least displayed existing Flash web content correctly.
@Chris:
If Safari rendered Flash in-line, with the rest of the page, I don’t see what issues there would be. Flash applications that respond to changes in stage size would re-layout their contents accordingly and those that don’t would be scaled.
If there was to be a standalone Flash player, it could have hooks into the system and receive events that it could respond to (just like any other native iPhone application). Again, I don’t see any technical reasons why this would be infeasible or even difficult.
@maliboo:
I agree with you that the iPhone, in its US configuration, would be laughed at in Europe. According to the rumor mill, Apple is going to announce the European version of the iPhone with multiple operators (Vodafone and T-Mobile), as well as 3G support. I sure hope you’ll also be able to replace the battery and change the SIM card yourself too.
Then again, Apple has recently been dumping US models of its products in the European market without any concern for local needs (e.g., Apple TV without TV show or movie downloads, Airport Extreme base station without ADSL support) so it will be interesting to see if these rumors are, in fact, true.
I’m a bit surprised at the hostile tone of your message. Apple doesn’t owe you anything.
Maybe I feel this way because a few years back, I had to eradicate a Symbian virus from a friend’s phone. It spat out thousands of X-rated MMS messages and cost her both extreme embarrassment and over $300 in phone charges. Since she lives in the Philippines and a $300 bill is about 1/3 of her monthly income, you can imagine how that felt to her.
If Steve’s approach can guarantee that such things never appear on my phone, I’ll learn to live with its limitations. When I returned to the USA I was very pleased that my T-Mobile Sidekick was /not/ an open device.
Yesterday, I visited the Apple Store in my area and picked up an iPhone. The thing is seductive. It sells itself. I visited my own web application with it. Everything was crisp, clear and beautiful. Sure, I held the device about a foot from my face, so it’s not like a laptop, but I was able to read every word on my page without strain. (For more of my impressions, click on my web site link.)
There are a lot of great web applications and they’re getting better. And more to the point, as technology catches up with iPhone, we’ll have applications that can run on any phone, not just iPhone. I would think this is well worth dealing with its limitations. Perhaps over time we will have added special HTML/CSS/JavaScript tags specific to iPhone’s features that do things like add the accelerometer and support the multi-touch gestures.
So try to have an open mind. I think we’re smarter than this kind of vindictiveness. Steve’s made an amazing product. He’s not done. Things will continue to evolve and I’m sure richer support is coming, for the web client portion if nothing else.
D
Flash is Adobe’s product. Apple doesn’t have to port Flash Player from Windows/Macs on x86/PPC to OS X running on ARM. If Adobe is stupid enough not to see that their product can be on millions of this little thing, it’s their loss. FWIW, I’ll be glad not to see a lot of annoying Flash ads. Okay, also that means there won’t be Flash games and Flash videos on iPhone, but they are not so important that people don’t buy iPhones because of it. Besides, game support is coming (check iTunes strings) and iPhone already has YouTube. I suspect, once iPhones really takes off, other video sites will bend over backward trying to support it.
Why does the iPhone need flash lite when it has core animation?
Here’s what I find interesting.
Apple is doing with the iPhone what Apple has done with all Apple products.
They have a closed system business model, they always have and will likely maintain that position.
It’s what allowed them to keep things functioning more seamlessly than in the Windows world and it is the basis for thier current success levels.
They will allow 3rd party developement on their terms as they have always done.
This should not come as a suprise to developers or anyone else. I’ts how they’ve always operated.
It’s been this same position that have relegated them to 5% OS marketshare that they have now.
The difference is now is that that same stubborness is now a virtue.
Since most consumer want a pleasurable experience and could care less about whats under the hood and who is writing the aps.
Apple will let developers in when they think it will benefit Apple.
@David:
I’m not sure why you perceive my post to have a hostile tone and I don’t know where I state that Apple owes me anything. As for being vindictive in my post, I don’t see where in anything I say I am looking for revenge for anything. If anything, I’m a happy Mac user and my intention here is not to attack Apple.
I am, as a developer, stating that the iPhone is not developer-friendly. I believe I have the right to do that on my blog.
I wonder if you have any insider knowledge when you state that “richer support is coming, for the web client portion if nothing else” as Apple have historically held such information on future releases very close to their chests. As far as I know, we don’t have any information whatsoever on what updates Apple will make to the iPhone in the future.
I’m not saying that the iPhone is not a good phone. Personally, I know I’ll be getting one when it’s available in the UK. The usability enhancements over other phones alone are enough for me to buy it. However, I am not happy with how closed the iPhone is and I do believe that Apple are trying to pull the wool over developer’s eyes by stating that they have a “sweet” developer solution when all they have are three one-way links into the core system.
@wallace:
I agree with you. And in my post I state that Adobe should have done whatever it could (including porting the Flash Player to the iPhone for free and eating that cost) to get the Flash Player on the iPhone. I don’t know whether they did or not. But, from what I understand, Adobe believes that device manufacturers should pay it to port the Player on to their devices. I don’t agree with this at all and I believe it is part of the reason that Flash is nothing but a gimmick on mobile handsets currently. If they tried this with Apple, I can only assume they got laughed at. Of course, I could be completely wrong and regardless of what concessions Adobe made, Apple might not have wanted to support Flash.
Flash support aside, however, I feel that the iPhone can be made far more open (and without compromising security at that) by giving at least two-way hooks into the system for developers. Of course, how they could achieve that with JavaScript running in the browser is another question.
Again, the issue isn’t lack of Flash Player support on the iPhone as much as lack of any developer support whatsoever.
@Joe S: Core animation is great — but can any third-party developers make use of it? Nope!
@Darryl: Was the Apple Mac ever closed to third-party developers? Are you saying that the Mac OS came to where it is by not allowing third-party applications to run on it?
The real consequence of not having a useless Flash plug-in on an iPhone is you aren’t spammed with advertisements while browsing on your phone. Pages should load faster and in many cases take up less space on the limited screen. Flash borders on useless anyway so I say, good riddance. There is nothing you can do in Flash that can’t be done with Ajax anyway.
@James: Your comment is so uninformed that I am not sure where to begin.
It’s true that Flash can be used to create annoying ads. So can animated gifs. There is, however, a lot more Flash than the 1995 perception of Flash that you appear to harbor.
I suggest you check out what’s changed in the Flash world in the last ten years (and take a look at Flex too, while you’re at it, as well as the open source tools and solutions available on OSFlash) before making ignorant statements publicly.
Regarding your statement that there is “nothing you can do in Flash that can’t be done in Ajax anyway”:
Can you please create a video player for me in Ajax?
OK, how about an online game — maybe a simple platform game or a shooter?
All right, all right, can you please make me a real-time chat client without resorting to polling?
How about an application that runs the same way on multiple platforms and platforms without a single line of platform-specific code?
There are quite a few things you can do in Flash that you cannot in Ajax.
“But, from what I understand, Adobe believes that device manufacturers should pay it to port the Player on to their devices.”
If this is true, it’s a mind boggling stupidity on Adobe’s part. They don’t make money from Flash Players on desktop computers, so why single out mobile devices? They need people to use Flash Players, so that developers use Flash and buy Adobe’s creative suites. That’s where they make the big bucks anyway. Adobe is more and more like a bloated, inefficient and marketing-driven company these days. Quite different from Adobe of old days.
On this posts (and comments) truths, and half-truths…
(1) If your intent in this post “has to do more with the general level of developer support in the iPhone, not just Flash support”, why did you choose to title it like you did? That’s misdirection.
(2) If you insist on getting technical, then let’s get _technical_. The iPhone features the full Safari engine, just as Steve Jobs claims. And guess what? That engine has never, EVER, included the Flash plugin. It’s Apple’s somewhat poor (but understandable) choice to now allow any plugins or downloads that is at fault here. But to label the lack of Flash in Safari as a “half-truth” is incorrect.
(3 – directed at one of the misinformed comments) You can get at the SIM card. In fact, many are being forced to right now, as AT&T is the cause of considerable grief. Their system has bogged down this weekend, leaving many buyers stuck in “activation hell” because their old phone has been de-activated and their iPhone isn’t. If you care to wade through the Apple support forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1016349&tstart=0
You’ll see that if you use a paperclip to access the hole on the top, you can in fact take out the SIM and use it in your old phone. Not the best, after all we’re talking half-truths, right?
Bottom line? You have a VERY valid point about 3rd party developers and the lack of value with regards to Apple’s claims on AJAX. Hostile tone? Not at all. But when you say your real point is about something that you chose not to include in your attention-grabbing title and also chose to not even begin to discuss until the thrid section of this long post….
Well, you can’t blame a fellow developer for reading it like you a whining big time.
“I’m not sure why you perceive my post to have a hostile tone”
Look, you’re a two-bit Flash developer. Steve P. Jobs is the CEO of a $100 billion dollar company, a legend and arguably the best techonology packager ever. You refer to him as “Steve” as if you’re talking to a child? How rude.
Apple is not selling a “platform.” It’s selling a consumer-grade convergence device. The iPod doesn’t use Flash either, although it could. There are over 100 million iPods out there, so obviously not having Flash is not an impediment to becoming one of the best selling gadgets in history. Just as, for instance, not having Flash is an impediment to having the most popular video site on the planet on the iPhone. See how that works?
Howdy, for what it’s worth, I know three things:
(1) Universal capability is one of Adobe’s prime goals… there’s a great consistency here towards making publishing “just work”, regardless of media, regardless of device type.
(2) There’s a lot you, I, and the rest of the public don’t know. ;-)
(3) There’s a strong consensus in current public discussion on the need for full Web capabilities, including SWF and solid PDF, on new devices.
Thanks for going on the record here about the type of future you’d prefer… may just end up making a difference, you never can tell…. ;-)
tx, jd/adobe
It’s not in Apple’s best interest to support a technology (Flash) that is currently in direct competition with one of it’s core offerings (Quicktime).
Quicktime still appears to be a large part of Apples strategy for video content delivery across it’s various product lines. The current deal between Apple and YouTube to deliver YouTube video in Quicktime format for the iTV rather than support the Flash Player on iTV is a pretty good measure of Apple’s position on Flash.
@Jeff: “Look, you’re a two-bit Flash developer.”
I’m glad to see the esteem with which you hold Flash developers (or is it all developers?) And, for the record, I like to think of myself as at least 8-bit, if not 16-bit. Some people say 32-bit but my goal is 64-bit, really. :)
I don’t know when referring to someone with their first name became an offense. To tell you the truth, I always ask people to refer to me with my first name. I can’t take a Mr. This or that. And I don’t call people by any long titles either. If you perceive that as being rude, that’s your call. Feel free to call him Mr. Jobs or My Savior or whatever else title you deem fit for your deity. On my blog, he’s plain old Steve.
I use a Mac, I love my Mac but that’s it. Neither Steve Jobs nor Apple is a god in my eyes.
“I don’t know when referring to someone with their first name became an offense.”
You ask people if you can call them by their first name. That’s the polite thing to do. In journalism, as elsewhere, after the introduction with full name, you refer to the person by their last name. You were literally *lecturing* Jobs with your language and petulant demand that he put Flash on the iPhone. That’s rude. Not being rude is not the same as deifying.
“Steve mentions that the iPhone has ‘the full Safari inside it’. This is not true. The full Safari supports Flash.”
It *is* true. Safari *supports* many things, including entirely private plugins. Does Apple have the obligation to ship *every* plugin that Safari can possibly support on Mac OS X? What an absurd position. It sounds like Flash deification to me.
Those who insist on use of surnames might consider providing them…. ;-)
Call him Steve, s. jobs, jobs, or whatever. We know whom you are talking about. If you know him then call him Steve, if not then it just rude.
Your rant about the lack of Flash support on the iPhone is just that. When/if Flash becomes a standard then feel free to lecture. Until then build websites that all of us can enjoy.
Flash can be great. It also can be a pain and ruin the user experience. The web is not about the haves and have nots, it was meant to be the great equalizer and Flash so far does not cut the mustard in meeting this goal.
Hey, Jeff. Please, just shut up :) because you don’t understand the point Aral is making. Hey Aral, man, you are such an inspiration; Thank you for sharing your opinion on iPhone. I think, iPhone should support Flash Player, otherwise, I won’t buy iPhone. :)
Hi Aral,
This is truely an honest review about the iphone and its hype and the Apple strategy.
You on the other hand is an inspiration to me and I think the developer community too.
I feel iPhone has to support Flash player or it will ruin its name in the competition as Nokia N- series and Sony Ericsson phones are providing high grounds for flash developers.
@Jeff, @Joseph, etc.:
Guys, let me tell you something: At every talk I’ve given this year (so far, I’m counting eight, internationally, including MacWorld 2007), I’ve spent about ten minutes (of the hour or 45 minutes, depending on the conference), talking about how switching to a Mac changed my life. I didn’t do this because I have shares in Apple (I don’t) but because I truly believe that it can make you happier in your daily work (because it has for me.)
After reading some of the comments here, however, and experiencing the hostility of the Apple fanboy religion first hand, I am reconsidering this. Thank you for opening my eyes to what the Apple fanboy culture actually is about. I hadn’t actually realized what people were referring to when they spoke about it. This is definitely more than simply liking (or loving) a product or a company, this is fanaticism of the religious variety. (When you believe that someone or something can absolutely do no wrong). It appears that in order to be a good Apple user, you must in no way criticize Apple or its products. To me that sounds way too much like joining a cult. And, as much as I love my Mac, and as much as it has made my life so much better, I am considering toning down my public display of affection for it (or, at the very least, heavily qualifying what I say) as the last thing in the world I would like to be thought of is as an Apple fanboy.
Oh and yes, it’s my blog. I’m not a journalist, nor do I purport to play one on the Internet. If I want to call someone by their first name on my own blog, I’ll do it, thank-you-very-much.
@Ozgur, @saumya: Thanks, guys! :)
And, just to reiterate the point I was making:
I don’t care whether that dog food is Flash, or Java, or a native SDK. The point is, if Apple hasn’t written any of its own applications in the “sweet” solution that it is providing for developers, it is not eating its own dog food. And that’s probably because the solution is not that “sweet” at all.
(And, in case anyone is actually seriously wondering, I do have the utmost respect Steve Jobs and the computers and operating system that his company makes have made me a happier person and let me rediscover the magic that I thought I’d lost in 22 years of using Windows.
However, although I do admire him, this doesn’t mean that he’s a deity in my eyes or that he — or Apple — is beyond making mistakes. And when they do, I feel it is in their interests that people tell them about it.
The worst position I can think of a CEO being in is in such a sheltered one that no one will tell him or her anything other than what he or she wants to hear, about how great everything is. That is how you become out of touch with reality and that is probably one of the biggest pitfalls any leader can fall into.
I’m not saying that providing three one-way hooks into the iPhone as their developer solution is a mistake. I am saying that, as a developer, and as someone who supports Apple by buying their products, I find it lacking.)
The guy over at Roughlydrafted.com has an interesting article why the iPhone doesn’t have flash – or java – and never will. It made a lot of sense to me.
@Peter: That’s a very interesting article, thanks for sharing it. Here’s a direct link to it.
“he — or Apple — is beyond making mistakes”
Geez. You really think the company that brough you OS X and the iPhone are idiots, incapable of evaluating Flash and deciding to include or exclude it based on Apple’s own criteria?
It’s a mistake just because you happen to be a Flash fanboy? You think Flash is the only way to bring engaging interactivity to mobile devices like the iPhone? Have you ever considered myriad hw, sw, and UX issues presented by Flash? And why Apple might just not want to deal with them, especially in a 1.0 product?
People like you were also browbeating Apple into providing MSFT DRM and Windows Media for the iPod. The FUD then was that the iPod without MSFT DRM was going to be eventually doomed. Apple had business goals then for the iPod, as it has now for the iPhone.
In many ways Adobe is a competitor in the mobile space. Flash, Flash Lite to be exact, is proprietary. Ajax, upcoming HTML 5, WebKit (which powers not only the iPhone but AppleTV, Nokia as well as AIR), canvas, H.264, etc. are not. Why shouldn’t Apple favor them?
Your stated ‘victimhood’ and cries of Apple zealotry don’t help others understand the issues involved. They are as inflammatory as they are rude. You see, in the Apple universe you’ll have to reason a bit deeper. And worship your Flash deity less.
Did any of you attend Adobe Live (I know you did Aral)? Some sessions, such as the Keynote, seemed to me like a marketing event for Apple and not Adobe. It’s clear that Adobe and Apple have tight links and common interests and it could well be that the hostility by Apple which the Roughlydrafted post appears to outline will backfire into Apple’s face. I think both company need and rely on each other in big ways and any shots from the hip seem like a bad idea.
But I don’t buy half of the points made on Roughlydrafted. Heck the iPhone may be a success for Apple but how big a share in the handset market will it really take? How many stores sold out of iPhone handsets?
Wipe out Flash Lite? Come on, who are you kidding (but point taken, Flash Lite is not essential for a mobile experience and I also think that the Flash Player needs H.264 support and pronto).
Apple is too small of a player in the mobile handset market (and some may say in the OS market too) to have any significant impact. Does Apple really think it can take on Adobe, MS and Real all at the same time? And p*ss off Java devs as well?
Plus if the iPhone works well then it will be copied, and patents can be worked around.
“Does Apple really think it can take on Adobe, MS and Real all at the same time?”
One word for you: iPod. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
What makes you think that a bunch of laggards like MS, Sony, Real, etc. that couldn’t even begin to stop the iPod/iTunes phenomenon over half a decade, will now suddendly wake up and outdo the iPhone? What dream world are you living in?
No worries… Here’s the only way the iPhone can live up to the hype:
http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/umedia/20070628/cp.a782a3b75747fcff521fa08e0797e6bb
;)
Damn… that roughlydrafted article… makes sense, and hurts simultaneously…
@Jeff:
I am not arguing that Apple’s decision to not include Flash on the iPhone was a mistake. I would, of course, have liked to have Flash on it as that would open yet another platform that I can develop for using a technology and tools that I love to use. However, I am making the following arguments:
1. That Steve Jobs telling people that the iPhone includes “the full Safari” is not true. The full Safari does not prohibit the installation of the Flash Player as the version of Safari on the iPhone does. They didn’t have to ship Flash with the iPhone but they went further than that: You can’t install the Flash plugin yourself either.
2. Now forget Flash for a moment. Here’s the main issue: The “sweet” developer solution that they offer consists of *three one-way hooks into the system*. That’s it. That’s what I find lacking.
@sakri: LOL! :)
“I am not arguing that Apple’s decision to not include Flash on the iPhone was a mistake.”
You could have fooled me. :-)
“I would, of course, have liked to have Flash on it as that would open yet another platform that I can develop for using a technology and tools that I love to use.”
So why don’t you just come out say that on top? As you’d put it: “I’m a Flash fanboy and I’d like to make more money by having another platform to develop on, Apple’s own business interests be damned.”
“The full Safari does not prohibit the installation of the Flash Player as the version of Safari on the iPhone does.”
Safari doesn’t do anything. It’s Apple that doesn’t allow you to do it. If there’s any business sense for Apple to do it, I’m sure Adobe and Apple can figure out a way to do it.
“You can’t install the Flash plugin yourself either.”
Don’t be disingenuous, you can’t install anything yourself, not just Flash.
“That’s what I find lacking.”
As a Flash fanboy (has it gotten sufficiently derogatory yet?), of course you would. There are however thousands of web developers who may be tickled pink for Apple giving them a huge canvas to play on.
You’ll see this issue more clearly when you begin to understand that Apple doesn’t owe you or Adobe anything and that perhaps it’s Adobe’s turn to figure out how to make Flash worth Apple’s time.
Ciao
just for the record, the WebKit engine was ported to mobile by Nokia for its S60 browser more then a year ago. So is probable that Apple used Nokia’s work since it’s open source.
Alessandro
“If Adobe dropped the ball by insisting on receiving the high sums it normally charges mobile phone operators for porting the Flash Player, then it took a very short-sighted decision…” I’d like to see if there were indeed any negotiations on this, and if Adobe did indeed shoot itself in the foot. Why does it always come down to Money? “Competition is good for business”. No it isn’t. Co-operation is good for business. Competition is exceedingly wasteful and bad for the general public. Can you imagine if Adobe, Apple, M$, Real, Sun, Google (yes, Google) and all these other companies decided that their ‘market stimulating competition’ was just greed in drag and decided that they could create much better products by co-operating, sharing and educating, rather than creating confusion, dissention, argumentation, and false loyalty to their diseased institutions which are in it for the few top dogs only, with everyone else struggling to survive, cogs in the wheel, fighting among themselves for a few scraps.
@Jeff:
Wow, you’re right, Apple gave developers a browser to work with. That’s so innovative. How could I have missed it? Oh yeah, because I have one on my Nokia N95 too. In fact, I have several. I can install any third-party browser I want to, like Opera, for instance.
Oh and look, I can create web apps for my Nokia N95. *And* have Flash. *And* install any app I want to.
What does Apple offer instead: Three one-way hooks to the core system for making a call, launching the email compose window and launching Google maps to a pre-determined address. Well hip-hip-hooray!
Apple’s “sweet” developer solution is bullshit. Plain and simple.
And if you knew anything about me (which clearly you don’t), you’d know that money is not the driving factor in what I do. And I definitely don’t make any money from mobile Flash stuff. I do love the technology and I do love making cool things with it, most of which (if not all, these days) I share under open source licenses.
So, basically, you’re talking out of your ass.
“In fact, I have several.
I can install any third-party browser I want to
*And* have Flash.
*And* install any app I want to.”
You *are* going to have a difficult time in the Apple world with that approach. Good design is not about wanton inclusion, it’s about exclusion. This isn’t Windows or Java crapware. Once again, Apple isn’t peddling a ‘platform’ with the iPhone, it’s selling a consumer-level gadget with excellent user experience.
“I do love the technology and I do love making cool things with it, most of which (if not all, these days) I share under open source licenses.’
Well, the iPhone is not a hobbyist platform. You’d be much happier with an open source/Java/Windows Mobile phone where you can load any crap you like. If you’re satisfied with what a decade of those phones brought to the market, have a ball.
“So, basically, you’re talking out of your ass.”
My, how rude they get when Flash fanboys get a taste of their own medicine.
Sorry to see the Apple fanboys are up to their old tricks again when *any* attack on Apple occurs.
For what it’s worth Roughlydrafted.com is an Apple fanboy site. ‘James Bailey’ is one of the fanboys that comments there and I would hazard a guess that the anonymous troll ‘Jeff’ who does the creepy Jar Jar Binks impression (how rude) is the head fanboy .
“Sorry to see the Apple fanboys are up to their old tricks again when *any* attack on Apple occurs.”
So you’ve just admitted this was nothing but an attack on Apple? Well done, lad.
It’s OK then for a Flash fanboy to attack Apple, as you say, but it’s an ‘old trick’ if his feeble justifications and admittedly self-centered FUD are called into question?
‘Nuff said.
I love Apple for providing me with beautiful things that work better … but I consider HTML Ajax = work around solution. I watched the WWDC2007 and started to feel sick at the, “woooo lets all worship every word of Mr Jobs for he can do nothing wrong” … sure, I have a great deal of respect for the man, but he’s not infallible … sometimes he picks the wrong guy, the wrong technology or just forgets who his friends are. I think the iPhone will have a lot of problems … can I validate them … not really … but I just have a bad feeling about the product … I might be wrong, but I think its going to have a lot of problems.
ah yes, I can validate them … its a dancing bear in a tutu … in a market saturated by row upon row of tap dancing bears in ugly leotards.
“I just have a bad feeling about the product … I might be wrong, but I think its going to have a lot of problems.”
I’m really glad that the anti-Apple zealotry has reached this touchy-feely voodoo stage. “Bad feelings,” eh? What, stomach ache? Rashes? Vertigo? Next time resort to astrology, won’t you.
Wow, what an entertaining thread. Some points I had to jump in and make:
01: There is a difference between Flash Lite for mobile devices and Flash Player that runs in our browsers. Flash lite is a great solution for mobile device manufacturers as it allows a relatively easy way for them to deliver interactive systems. Numerous advantages over Java, etc. Adobe sells it, handset makers buy it. good for both parties. Apple would never need Flash Lite as they have their expertise in their platform and OS. Adobe doesn’t care about that. It’s not a product for Apple.
02. The Flash Player on the other hand, is heavily adopted on the internet due to how long it has been around and how mature the platform is. Go to almost any major auto site (Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Lexus, etc.) or major athletics site (Nike, Adidas, Callaway Golf, etc etc) and you will see some sites that aren’t quite Banner Ads. Yes there are some awful Flash sites but there are just as many awful HTML and Javascript sites that don’t work on every browser. This isn’t the forum for a Flash versus AJAX debate. The fact is Flash is extremely popular and when used properly works very well. Love it or hate it, it’s irrelevant. The internet is about choice — people have the choice to author with it and other people have the choice to remove or disable the plugin.
03. Apple has decided on behalf of all of us, that we will not be able to see Flash content. It’s Apple’s conception of what the Internet is. Technology that Apple has no part in — Java, flash, real, wmv, etc. This is what is fundamentally WRONG — deciding for us what we want. We should have the choice to disable or not install a plugin that is so heavily used.
04. The decision to not allow Flash is 90% Political and 10% technical. I know this. Apple has grudges against certain companies they are in competition with. Read between the lines.
05. roughlydrafted.com — that blogpost is laughable. For that guy to think that Apple can “choke” out something like Flash is ridiculous and ignorant. Oh yeah the “Canvas” tag in javascript… go nuts with that one.
06. Apple is Apple. They make fantastic products. I love them. I use a Mac and always will. I love it when they make products the way they want to. The iPhone is pretty amazing — but why cripple the internet on the device because they don’t control every technology on the internet? Nobody “owns” the internet. They just end up looking sour because some things did better then their feeble past attempts.
It’s amazing how the Uber nerds take the position that Apple can never make a mistake and do something wrong. Luckily it’s only small percentage of mac users which are a small percentage of the marketplace overall.
funny that Jeff gets so worked up about making his point. I think there’s no conspiracy theory involved and before long Apple will open the door up to developers. This is iPhone 1.0 and it’ll evolve. There have been some hints being dropped from Apple engineers already.
But maybe Jeff (sorry to be rude Jeff and refer to you by your first name, don’t be shy and tell us all about you – do you have a website?) is right and the fact that Apple won’t support Flash is their ingenious way of wiping out Flash Lite. And while they are at it the they’ll kill the Flash Platform as a whole, including other small fish such as MS, Real and Sony.
Funny, like Aral I had a really positive image of Apple and its followers. After all I own an iPod, Apple TV, MacBook Pro and an iBook and I do like them but then people such as Jeff come along and spoil that picture for me. In that you have succeeded Jeff and I will take great care not to get too excited about their products. After all if what you say is correct then we’re all at Apple’s mercy and they just let us exist for the time being, ready to take a swipe at any moment and change the internet landscape at the push of a button…
I’m still taking bets: Flash will run on the iPhone within 12 months.
I’ve even got a quote handy:
‘I think sometime later this year we will find a way to let third parties write apps and still preserve security,” Jobs said at that conference. ‘
Thank goodness, I was about to start looking for a new job.
“One word for you: iPod. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
sorry Aral for spamming your blog but Jeff… oh boy you crack me up. You are right, of course, the MP3 player market is *exactly* like the mobile handset market, they are virtually the same thing. Damn that slipped my mind. I hope Apple will have mercy with the Nokia’s of this world.
@Simon: saying you will always use a mac is a bit extreme… things change, apple products are mostly great user experiences at the mo but who knows whats gonna happen in a year to ten
@Jeff: you do come across as just a little like one of those fanboys who goes wild when jobs mentions the word “patent”
@Aral: thanks for a great read. Job’s Steve’s ;) use of the word sweet strikes me a little like “hey steve, you’re talking rubbish mate”*
*on present iPhone
@Stefan: what odds are you offering?
I think it unfair to blame apple and the whole apple community because one person states some strong opinions. I have been using a mac for 15 years and am one of those people you referred to as being in the cult of apple.
Unlike Jeff though, I learned long ago from the many Mormans and Christians that stopped by my door selling their religions to me. The best way to share your religion is to allow people to find it and experience it for themselves. Very few people enjoy having things rammed down their throats.
I think blogs are fun to read. Much like stock analysts and political analysts tech analysts are only speculating. Only time will tell where this whole iphone thing goes. I personally wouldn’t bet against apple though.
Great post Aral…
Thanks for making some excellent points….
****
Regarding Flash…
Why am I encountering so many ignorant Mac users who have no clue what they’re talking about when it comes to Flash. The accusations of who needs silly animations or distracting advertisements is like saying who needs HTML because of pop-up adds.
Flash ceased being just an animation/ad tool. It’s now a development tool for building rich interactive web based applications. And unlike AJAX, you’re not forced to account for every little nuance and incongruency in every browser out there. The company I used to work has a massively large medical application done in Flash. I was shocked to find that while I could not browse a great many websites on my PDA phone I could utilize and run our Flash application.
“The web is not about the haves and have nots, it was meant to be the great equalizer and Flash so far does not cut the mustard in meeting this goal.”
Funny, more people have Flash player than any single browser. Furthermore, Flash player plays more consistently in browsers than HTML does. So I’d argue it may not be the perfect solution but it’s better than anything else.
As for Flash being a standard – what are you defining as a standard? an ISO certified standard? open source standard? commonly used (in which case it is)…
Flash is every bit a standard as is Safari and OSX.
****
Steve Jobs deserves a lecture….
Steve and Apple release better designs than most companies. But they’re still only at best 60%-80% of the way there to good designs.
As for the oft “why don’t you design a better”, I can…however, I have not had the opportunity to be in the right place, at the right time and to have an engineer friend (a.k.a. Wozniak) to allow me to do so.
But I can pick up almost anything and within a couple of minutes improve the design be it from Apple, IKEA or Toyota.
“Geez. You really think the company that brough you OS X and the iPhone are idiots, incapable of evaluating Flash and deciding to include or exclude it based on Apple’s own criteria?”
No, but assuredly, that they are capable of missing key aspects of usability. I have recently moved from Windows to OSX. And although there is much to like about OSX and a great many improvements over Windows. OSX completely misses the boat in a number of places that even Windows has.
****
And I’ll attack Apple straight up and in every Mac fan boys face. In fact, I’d love the opportunity to say it to Steve Jobs.
“It’s good, but it should be great!”
And I HAVE EVERY RIDE TO SAY IT!!! More so, I will speak it. With or without my ca$h. And you can too. You go buy the iPhone. Me, I am wanting a device that replaces my PDAphone but doesn’t strip away 90% of the functionality I have at present.
And I’m not sorry if this rubs you Mac fanboys the wrong way. Because complaint and demand will only make the iPhone better. Just as it did the iPod. Or would you like to still use a 1st generation iPod?
****
And there are numerous failings with the iPhone but one really great perfection – that being a sweet GUI. But just to review a number of flaws, failings, etc of the iPhone.
Missing Features that Keep the iPhone from Perfection:
(Please don’t get me wrong. I very much want an iPhone but I want a fully complete iPhone. I’d pay an extra $200 to see these features included. 1/2 of these features are available standard on most PDA cell phones. So essentially, what we have with the iPhone is 2 steps forward and 1 step back. We have the interface we’ve desired but not the functionality.)
1) Cingular. Nothing more really needs to be said on this one.
2) No broadband/3G/high speed data (only abysmally slow EDGE). So we’re using way out of date technology that limits the iPhone to to dial-up speeds. What’s the point of YouTube if you can barely watch a video. And no, WiFi is not the answer. I’ve had WiFi on my PDA Phone for sometime. I seldom use it…and never when travelling. If I am at home or work, I have a laptop to browse online – so I use that. The only time I use my phone for browsing is when I am not near internet access. WiFi networks usually require logins, and force you into a small 50ft radius. With wireless broadband such as Verizon’s EvDO I can pretty much travel from Connecticut to Maryland with internet access. Cingular has faster HDSPDA internet already available in select increasing markets. But the iPhone does not take advantage of that. To quote Steve Jobs himself, the iPhone browses too slow.
3) No voice recognition. This is an uber-big miss. Especially for a phone with zero tactile feedback. The inability to be able to voice dial is very significant.
4) Cannot use MP3’s as ring tones. And from what I understand you can’t even use downloaded iTunes songs as ring tones. This is absolutely the LAMEST thing. I am so !@#$% tired of being restricted from using music I have paid for. If I have a phone/media player I’d expect to be able to use those songs as my ring tones. From what I understand, at present you have to convert them to ring tones via iTunes. How silly is that….so now you need to waste additional space for the same song.
5) Keyboard only available in portrait mode not landscape. Would be nice to have the option – especially for those of us with big fingers.
6) No contact groups (this is a biggie for a lot of people who need to categorize their contacts). I find this hard to believe. A co-worker of mine just got an iPhone. I am waiting to see if this is true after he activates it.
7) No Flash support in browser. This is a big disappointment. All the best online content I’ve utilized on a mobile browser has been Flash based. The recent additions of Adobe Flex2, and Adobe AIR is pushing Flash applications even further on the web. Steve Jobs claim to be “full Safari” may be true…if you consider a Safari that cannot support plugins to be “full”. I do not…
8) No multimedia messaging (pix/flic messaging). From what’s being said on the web the iPhone will let you email pics but does no support multimedia messaging. The standard protocol that allows various phones on various networks to send pics and flics to each other. What good is a camera phone if you can’t send photos to other cameras (as every other camera phone sold today can do?)
9) Speakers improperly placed on the iPod (this one shocked me, I expected more from Apple). Speakers point at the bottom. The one place a user is least likely to want to hear audio from. Speakers should have pointed forward. In fact….there should have been two speakers. One on top and one on bottom for proper stereo output.)
10) No manual updating of the iPhone with content. Forced to create playlists. This is bothersome. I own an iPod and the first thing I turned off was synching. I like to manually populate my iPod. I don’t necessarily want everything loaded on automatically. This is even more of a problem when you have a mere 4-8gigs of space on your iPod.
11) No memory slot for additional memory upgrade. Would have been nice, but that said the iPhone still exceeds pretty much any other Phone PDA in terms of storage. But it’d have been nice to have a microSD slot and be able to store movies on 4gig cards and swap them out as desired.
12) No GPS – Google maps is nice, but only minimally useful for navigating if it can’t tell you where you are. I am curious to see if the iPhone will support a bluetooth GPS. Otherwise, can we say LAME-O. At least 90% of the other PDA Phones out there support bluetooth GPS units.
13) Camera has no self-portrait mirror. Ironically, this could have been easily provided by simply moving and slightly enlarging the shiny fully reflective Apple logo on the back. Go figure… No video option???
—-
That all said, I am hoping to see a number of those features added to future generations of iPhones. I’d very much like to buy a later generation iPod. And I do thank Apple for forcing all the PDA phone makers to have to leap to innovate. Case in point, HTC is already offering a multi-touch cell phone a.k.a. iPhone style.
The world of pdaphones will be a better place in two years thanks to Apple.
BTW…
I was just thinking that it might be easy to re-create some of the aspects of iPhone’s movements in Flash. On mousedown (touch) track mouse movement, then on mouseup stop. Evaluate co-ordinates.
True, a mouse only provides a sinle point device. But I hear that future MacBooks are going to support multi-touch trackpads and I imagine soon someone will release such for the PC as well.
In which case perhaps the mouse event needs to be made an array. But I really see no reason why Adobe could not support such behaviors in the Flash engine.
- Saj
?“The web is not about the haves and have nots, it was meant to be the great equalizer and Flash so far does not cut the mustard in meeting this goal.”
>Funny, more people have Flash player than any single browser. Furthermore, Flash player plays more consistently in browsers than HTML does. So I’d argue it may not be the perfect solution but it’s better than anything else.
Jason the SaJ,
Thanks for touching on this issue. I am not here as a Fanboi from any camp. As for myself, one of my goals. in an academic setting, has been the study of the exchange of data between unlike systems, from the years I do not wish to admit, but included working in a “Micro PC LAB” with very unlike systems in the very early 80’s.
I am not here to debate your position about Flash or its user installed base. Standard, as you well know, are set by boards (i.e. IEEE and their likes). These boards are not based on “the Majority Rules” as you seem to argue.
While I am not sure what they are debating now, we all know Adobe and Apple are working on this issue. Will it led to a standard?, Iis it about money?, Is it about security?, God knows and even she wonders. I have a felling its about all three.
Just remember Apple and Adobe are like a married couple. All will be fine in the end, just duck fast if you find yourself in their paths about this issue.
If I were Apple (which I’m not or I’d be a corporate behemoth and not a human of flesh and blood), I’d stick with my own technologies for the first cut, then branch out rapidly as the product evolves. I would put Flash support on the punch-list, for sure. It’s a no-brainer and I know it will happen!
Yeah, it’s disappointing that Flash isn’t supported on the first-cut iPhone. I feel sorry for developers who have to use AJAX to bring RIAs to this device. Imagine the spaghetti throwaway code that will result. Ah…
On the brighter side, consider the ramp-up time we have as Flash developers to eyeball what works and what doesn’t on the iPhone, and shape our products based on this information. We all know Adobe and Apple will marry their technologies on this platform.
hahhahahaa… ah man… I just read this:
http://duggmirror.com/apple/The_iPhone_is_a_piece_of_shit_and_so_is_your_face/?u=iphone
This guy has a, how do you say it, one track mind, but in the light of this particular discussion it’s a funny posting :D