Certain defenders of Apple’s stance on excluding the Flash platform from Mobile Safari, such as Daring Fireball have been trying to flip the argument, saying that Flash is an outdated technology, the concept of browser plugins is outdated, and that HTML 5 has all but deprecated any need for Flash. They also argue that the only use for Flash is for playing silly games that would be better rendered as native applications, anyway (obviously they have never heard of Rich Internet Applications).
By now Adobe has announced Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR for Android at the Mobile World Congress (funny, we just completed a web redesign for a client who is a sponsor of MWC, centered around the event, but I had no idea about Adobe’s role there). This demo of using Adobe Connect on the Droid by Kevin Hoyt says something totally contrary.
Here we have a real business case scenario that Mobile Safari can’t compete with. Sure, maybe they will make something comparable to the iChat capability of screen sharing available on iPhone one day, but here it is, Adobe Connect, running on a Droid, now.
Personally, I have always been of the opinion that Apple will allow Flash on their mobile devices when, and only when, it will make them more money. Currently they have pretty tight control (jail-breaking aside) over what can be run on their devices, and all money to be made from application development flows through Apple’s iTunes store. Would having AIR on the iPhone totally upset that? Of course. Until, and unless, Apple perceives they are losing economic ground due to competing platforms, they aren’t going to change their stance.
Overall, I think Apple’s stance is actually very healthy for the market. It has driven Adobe to work really hard to improve the full version of the Flash player (as opposed to Flash Lite), which is great for developers who don’t want to have to develop a separate code base just to support their applications in the mobile world (having to revert to ActionScript 2, which is pretty much a different language altogether, when you have been living in the AS3 world, is uninviting to say the least). By improving Flash, they have made it more viable for running on mobile devices as well as for application development. It has also given an opening to every other maker of mobile devices to step up to the plate and compete with Apple by offering what Apple doesn’t, on their devices.
I think Steve Job’s demo at the January unveiling of iPad said it all…throughout the demo, he kept hitting those blue lego boxes due to lack of Flash support, and you can hear the audience laughing out loud every time. I couldn’t resist putting together a few screen shots.
