Adobe smacks back Apple over iPad, again

There’s a ton of chatter on Techmeme today regarding iPad and Flash and HTML 5. Again. In particular don’t miss posts from ReadWriteWeb regarding Flash vs. HTML 5 speed and PC World’s comparison of HP’s new Slate vs. the iPad and how the focus will be on Flash.

Yesterday I sat down with top execs from Adobe’s Flash team. I filmed two videos:

1. A video demo of a variety of things Adobe announced at the Mobile World Congress, including a new Flash player for Android and Palm Pre (I played with it yesterday, very nice).
2. A response to Apple about Flash’s appropriateness for including on iPhone and iPad.

Why won’t the iPad have Adobe Flash technology? Anup Murarka director of technology strategy and partner development for the Adobe Flash platform and Aaron Filner, group product manager of Flash platform, focusing on AIR, answer some of the reasons why Steve Jobs doesn’t put Adobe Flash onto the iPad in one of the videos I filmed yesterday when I visited Adobe’s offices in San Francisco. Things like:

1. It will chew up battery.
2. It will crash or be buggy.
3. It doesn’t work with touch interfaces.
4. It won’t perform well enough.

They take on each of these complaints about Adobe Flash and explain what has changed with the Flash 10.1 player.

My thoughts? I’m buying an iPad anyway (we’re even having a party at the Palo Alto store all night on the evening of April 2nd) and I have iPhones. My life would be better if Flash shipped on iPad, but it doesn’t look like that will happen. So, developers are going to be forced to build two versions of their web pages if they care about reaching me as a customer and one of those versions will need to have no Flash or Silverlight (Apple is also resisting including Microsoft’s Silverlight platform).

But Adobe is doing a pretty good job of keeping Flash developers’ skills relevant. You can build apps for iPhones or iPads in Flash and compile them using some new tools that Adobe has been showing off and will ship before July. Even Adobe’s own Photoshop app on the iPhone was built in Flash and compiled using these new tools. That’s a compelling story.

I have to admit, though, that I will be checking out other competitive devices from Google and others. I already have a Droid, which will use the new Flash 10.1 player just fine and I expect I’ll check out the new HP tablet and, especially, ones that will come with the Google Chrome OS later this year. Those, I expect, will support Flash and that could be a big deal in future device decisions.

How about you? Will you decide not to buy Apple products just because they won’t run Flash in Web pages?

  • http://plzkthxbai.com jcw5002

    It's not going to stop me from purchasing an iPad in April. I'm confident that most worthwhile sites will provide Flash alternatives in the coming weeks/months.

    • anas

      The problem isn’t about being able to view sites built on flash… but about viewing video sites built on flash. Why should youtube have a monopoly over mobile video?

      And HTML5 video seems unreliable on youtube. it takes to0 long to download. Same problem on mobile… you just dont notice it.

  • http://twitter.com/rom Rom

    Frankly, the first thing I do on a fresh install of any OS is to get a browser (Chrome or Firefox) and install a Flash blocking plug-in/add-on. Flash-based adverts are PIA. If I have options instead of Flash, I go for it. Heck, I don't even have Silverlight or Adobe AIR installed.

    I prefer my devices to be Flash-free! Apple is doing a great thing and hoping that Google will continue dumping Flash in favor of HTML5 (but they just bought a Flash-based web service, Picnik).

    And oh, Flash-based sites are problematic to the visually-impaired – no screen readers.

    • Ethan

      “And oh, Flash-based sites are problematic to the visually-impaired – no screen readers.”

      Wrong. I have elearning content going back 3 years in flash that works with JAWS. It’s running in a state government deployment and they heavily tested it.

      More likely it was a failure by the developer to setup the content correctly.

    • Ethan

      “And oh, Flash-based sites are problematic to the visually-impaired – no screen readers.”

      Wrong. I have elearning content going back 3 years in flash that works with JAWS. It’s running in a state government deployment and they heavily tested it.

      More likely it was a failure by the developer to setup the content correctly.

  • theThought

    I think that Adobe are being clever in the midst of a potential crisis. Although they continue to berate Apple for not supporting Flash they are moving around the issue by providing a way for Flash developers to build for the Apple platform. It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to support the new iPad platform/SDK as opposed to that for the iPhone and Touch.
    Will I buy an iPad? Probably. I will buy it for the wife so that I can not feel guilty about buying something more suitable in the near future.
    In the meantime I like other Flash Designer/Developers will have to enhance my abilities even for environments that support Flash as the way users interact with a mouse or pen is different than the way they interact through touch (absence of mouse rollover being an excellent example).

  • ken Jackson

    The tablet form factor is still a non-starter for me. It simply makes my life more cluttered rather than less so. It's one of the first tech devices I've seen in a while that replaces nothing:
    1) iPhone replaced my old phone
    2) TiVo replaced the VCR
    3) iPod replaced the Walkman
    4) GPS replaced maps

    The iPad replaces nothing. It's simply more convenient to hold when I'm standing up than a laptop. There's no place I'd go today where I take my laptop and phone where I would no longer take them if I had an iPad. And for the most part, I don't think I'd even bother pulling it out when I have my phone in my pocket. And with the newer phones, screen resolution will be competitive to even this 9″ display.

    Probably not since the SpotWatch is there a device that I'm less interested in buying. I do want to play with one, but I'll probably spend 15 minutes at an Apple store to do that. I guess their job is to convince me in that 15 minutes that I need one. :-)

  • hmlc

    I'm getting an iPad, mostly for easier reading in bed and while traveling. And given Flash performance on my MBP, leaving it off the iPad is a no-brainer. Especially given 3G download speeds.

  • FourFeetOfCurl

    First, I think everyone is missing the point regarding iPad web browsing. The problem is not the lack of Flash, it's the lack of overflow div scrolling. I run into this issue constantly on my iPhone, and at appears this will continue to be an issue with the iPad.

    But it's funny how people are so quick to jump on Apple for the lack of Flash on the iPhone. The iPhone has been around for 3 years (!), yet there has been no reasonable mobile Flash solution from Adobe prior to version 10.1; and has that even been released yet?

    Even if Flash 10.1 had been released years ago and Apple had decided to adopt it, I would still disable Flash on my iPhone and iPad like I disable Flash on my desktop. At this point Flash is only good for watching video, and the sooner websites switch to HTML5 video the better off everyone will be. But that won't stop Adobe from working frantically to try and keep Flash relevant.

    Either way, I can't wait to get my hands on an iPad. I'll finally be able to retire my Newton!

  • canucker

    No Flash love from me. Click-to-Flash has restored the web browsing experience. But it isn't the technical issues that are blocking Flash from the iPad. It's Apple's insistence on controlling the run-time. Wil buy an iPad once the hype has died down and OS 4.0 features have been announced.

  • Tom

    I know Anup Murarka needs to spin the positive company line but seriously. Has he actually used his own products on the Mac Platform?

    I used to love Dreamweaver. Then I moved to a Mac with the result of having all but given up on Dreamweaver. It was buggy and more importantly slow to the point where on complex documents would be painfully slow to work with.

    Photoshop is great but again I can't but help think things have gotten a lot slower since moving to a Mac. Just leave Photoshop running with a large image open… eventually it will either crash or bring the Mac to it's knees. A full OS restart usually fixes issues.

    Lastly, the Flash plugin keeps crashing so much on my Safari, Chrome and Firefox install that I have certain pages I don't even bother visiting anymore. I am sure a lot of the Flash issues have to do with poorly developed Flash content. After all I don't seem to have any issues with some pages but can have an almost guaranteed crash with others.

    My sneaking suspicion is that a lot of Adobe products on the Mac platform are held back by tons and tons of legacy code. That code takes time and money to fix or migrate. I'. only guessing that Adobe management doesn't see the need to invest money in that area. So I think Steve shouldn't say Adobe are lazy… what he should say is Adobe management is greedy.

  • Eric

    I'll be getting an iPad with or without Flash. It's a minor annoyance and I'm sympathetic with SJ's feeling that he doesn't like the way Flash needs to get deep into the OS to operate decently esp as Apple developed all the core technologies for programmers to use and its only recently that Adobe have given this any effort. It's a culture clash, Jobs likes things which keep their distance from his work. Adobe seem to be a bit disorganised in their approach.

    Jobs has been so innovative and so successful so often and since I've really enjoyed using his products I”m always interested in what they're going to put out next. OTOH if Sony or Google or Samsung or HTC or Microsoft came out with a significantly better product for my needs I wouldn't hesitate to buy it. But having flash would not be any kind of incentive for me to consider a differnt tablet.

  • timothymcclanahan

    Apple blocking me from using Flash just makes me want to use Flash more, and Apple less. I'll be developing mobile apps soon, and I will absolutely not be developing apps for Apple's platforms due to their insane anti-developer, anti-user stances of late. Apple made my first computer. :(

  • pxlated

    So, you're going to ignore the Apple platforms and be a down-n-out broke software developer? That's smart. Hope you enjoy the free soup at the Salvation Army.

  • timothymcclanahan

    So rewarding Apple's bad behaviour is a GOOD idea? What kind of logic is that?

  • http://samj.net/ samj

    Deliberate Flash incompatibility is a feature, not a bug. They have had a decade or two to get the thing right and only now that the farm's on fire have they bothered fixing fundamental problems (presumably the constant stream of security issues will however remain).

    And no, developers won't have to develop two versions of their sites – just one – in standards compliant HTML. Flash UIs are more often than not noticeably slower than native interfaces and they “feel” buggy due to cursor behaviour, tabbing order, copy & paste, etc. The sooner more companies follow Virgin America's example by ditching Flash interfaces the better.

  • AC

    I didn't read all the comments, but the number one reason Flash is not supported on the iPad is because rich internet applications and interactive games can be built with Flash. This fact brings Apple to the conclusion that developers will bypass the App store. Which therefore means Apple cannot make money from non-App store software.

    • mark

      Agree

    • mark

      Agree

  • wilhelmreuch

    This is all so strange. When did the open web go so wrong? When did developers decide it is o.k. to build websites based on closed proprietary software?

    This is not Apples problem. It is not even Adobe's problem. It is a leadership and a visionary problem when designing websites. Anyone should be able to build a device that renders the web. Anyone. Even Apple. It should not require the blessing of Adobe Inc. to build a web-surfing device.

    This has nothing to do with the quality of the plugin (even if Adobe mismanaged this – big time). Nor does it have anything to do with Steve Jobs needing control (well maybe for him it is – but I dont care). It has everything to do with a free open web.

    Or maybe we should put W3C, WHATWG to sleep and just rely on Adobe Inc. to decide who gets to build rendering devices and who does not. And have a monopoly on licensing the needed parts.

    • http://www.openplayer.net/ OpenPlayer

      Wilhelmreuch, if you really think that Flash closeness is an issue, you can now sign the petition to ask Adobe to open source Flash Player here : http://www.openplayer.net/

    • http://www.openplayer.net/ OpenPlayer

      Wilhelmreuch, if you really think that Flash closeness is an issue, you can now sign the petition to ask Adobe to open source Flash Player here : http://www.openplayer.net/

  • http://twitter.com/marcins Marcin Szczepanski

    I develop stuff for the flash player, but I'll believe these performance claims when I see them.. I'm watching the video with 10.1 public beta 3 in Safari 4 and WebKitPluginHost is using 65% CPU and WindowServer another 20% CPU. This is on a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo MBP. On a mobile device with a fraction of the CPU power it'd be killing it.

  • http://www.muchosmedia.com/ Stefan Richter

    Anyone built a Chatroulette clone in HTML5 yet? Ah, thought not.

  • http://www.muchosmedia.com/ Stefan Richter

    Anyone built a Chatroulette clone in HTML5 yet? Ah, thought not.

  • markgrant

    This is down to Apple and their deliberate and disingenuous failure to provide the flash player access to gpu acceleration: read http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_

  • markgrant

    I always find it odd that proponents of 'openness and freedom' on the web actually hypocritically mean 'only use what we dictate'. Since when does 'freedom' and 'openness' allow you to dictate what I can and cannot use? Perhaps we shouldn't be allowed to use proprietary operating sytems?

    TRUE freedom is allowing people to make CHOICES and implement whatever technology they want to on the web. Whether that choice is the best fit for the task is neither here nor there, developers should have the freedom to express themselves using flash content if they so choose, just like viewers can choose to install/block flash player if they so choose. You can buy or not buy restricted devices like Apple create – you have choice.

    However, most of the anti-flash lynch mob hysteria I see is all about reducing choice and expression – 'kill the evil flash witch'.

  • http://consultski.blogspot.com consultski

    I missed flash on my iTouch for about a week. Now, when confronted with various required “upgrades” on my Mac, I am more disappointed with each interruption. If the iPad will run Skype, I will buy it.

  • Reinhard

    Will get the HP Slate for many reasons, not the iPad, mainly because of the OS and Flash.

  • Reinhard

    Will get the HP Slate for many reasons, not the iPad, mainly because of the OS and Flash.

  • http://twitter.com/MatthewBooks Matthew Books

    Stick a fork in them, Flash is done. Everyone who's been on the web long enough hates it and it's only good for web video.

    • Jeff

      Matthew,

      that’s a totally silly comment – an absurdly false generality. I’ve been doing web development for going on 15 years, and no, I don’t hate Flash. And to say “it’s only good for web video” is ridiculous. It’s obvious you don’t know too much about Flash and it’s capabilities.

    • Jeff

      Matthew,

      that’s a totally silly comment – an absurdly false generality. I’ve been doing web development for going on 15 years, and no, I don’t hate Flash. And to say “it’s only good for web video” is ridiculous. It’s obvious you don’t know too much about Flash and it’s capabilities.

  • http://www.nextwidgetsblog.com/ Alex Savic

    Great interview Robert – this pretty much lays to rest any doubts I may have had about the future of flash. Thanks !

  • floatingbones

    Perhaps flash is just the cat's meow on other smart phones. However, the Adobe engineers fail to explain why flash sucks so many CPU cycles when running on a variety of browsers in my Macbook Pro.

    You also missed one of the major problems with Flash: flash cookies allow another way for my identity to leak out and for advertisers to cross-connect data.

    Between buggy software and designed-in identity leaking, I try to avoid flash.

  • http://gamebashing.com chupchap

    From what I heard, in Flash CS5 developers can export flash games to an iPhone app; at the click of a button. So I think Adobe is playing it cool, I don't understand why Apple's so stuck up though! Absence of flash alone is no reason to NOT buy an Apple product, but if competitors are providing something equally good, or even better then Apple might lose out in the long run.
    Also, if they enable flash support later on, what happens to all the apps? What happens to those devs who were depending on these apps for revenue?

  • http://gamebashing.com chupchap

    It sucks on Macs because Apple doesn't let f;lash use hardware acceleration on Macs, if they let flash use it, it would suck less (CPU power)

  • http://www.floatingbones.com/ Phil Earnhardt

    I'm skeptical. Flash apps consume 66% of a CPU when it's sitting there is nothing to update in the display.

    Compare the performance of Adobe Reader with Apple Preview (PDF and graphic image viewer). Neither of them use any HW acceleration of the mac. Apple Preview runs rings around Reader: much faster, and far more features. Preview can crop all of the pages of a PDF document at once — great for trimming unneeded whitespace to allow a bigger image of the copy on the page.

    Further, Adobe Reader is subject to hacker attacks because it both includes javascript functionality and has it turned on by default. Search for Adobe in http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-237.htm to see the latest threat. I have no #$!! idea why anyone would ever need javascript functionality in a PDF document.

    You also failed to explain why Flash needs to have a separate place to stash cookies that is unknown to most customers. Why aren't regular cookies good enough? Why must someone be an uber-geek to even know about things like flash cookies.

    Adobe lost my loyalty a long time ago. The only thing that I need something like flash for is video; YouTube, uStream and others have already provided H.264 alternatives for that. I've gotten along just fine without flash on iPhone and iPod Touch. I do NOT want flash apps to launch on webpages I view on those platforms.

    I am happy that Apple has excluded flash from their sub-laptop products. I hope it accelerates the demise of flash apps on the Internet.

  • mrkentwww
  • http://gamebashing.com chupchap

    Yes, Adobe reader has become worse with every version on every platform. I prefer opening pdf files on google docs these days. But same can't be said about flash because, flash is not just about video, it's also about the games (farmville anyone?). The flash games market is bigger than video, If not H.264 some other codec will replace flash video, but what about flash games? How long Apple look past flash as if it didn't even exist?

  • http://twitter.com/marcins Marcin Szczepanski

    Well, that's sort of true. If you just took a regular Flash game and exported it for iPhone the performance would likely be woeful. You have to do a lot of very specific mobile optimisation to get decent performance out of Flash based iPhone apps (mainly to take advantage of graphics hardware acceleration). Most of these optimisations will apply to other mobile platforms that will run the FP10.1 player, so there is that benefit, but for iPhone only you may as well just write it in Objective-C.

  • http://gamebashing.com chupchap

    You have a point, but let's wait for CS5, I want to see for myself what exactly they have in store for devs.. if they can make a good iPhone port with the click of a button, it would be fantastic.

  • http://www.grocio.com/ Gerald Buckley

    Mr. Scoble :) I was talking with a grocer whose site is somewhat dependent on Flash in some important places. Their VP of Marketing who has ownership of the site says he's giving up on Flash… it's just too little too late (as of yesterday) and the whole author twice approach dings his return on investment. Bells and whistles aren't enough… it's down to transactions, ease of authoring and productivity of his (shrinking) staff/consultants.

  • http://twitter.com/marcins Marcin Szczepanski

    Let's just say I may or may not be in a certain pre-release program and may be speaking from experience :)

  • http://gamebashing.com chupchap

    Ha ha that's a cheeky way of putting a point through. Under these circumstances, I'll take your word for it I guess =P

  • Ethan

    I won't be buying an ipad or iphone specifically because of the lack of flash. I'll just grab a chrome OS tablet when they hit. I have 2 macs, appletv, time capsule, and airport express so I'm fully mac but I have no need for apple's vision of the internet. Let people choose what they install.

    Useful info on 10.1 performance: http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animatio

    I think this has nothing to do with open web so do not delude yourself. It has everything to do with all content flowing through the app store. That is why silverlight and even java plugins are not allowed, apple wants the cash flow. I wished they'd be honest about it and say that.

  • MV

    I'm glad the iPhone/iPad doesn't use Flash. Flash represents a buggy, resource hoggy and proprietary branch of web development that is better truncated sooner rather than later so we can get back how the web is supposed to be: open standards that don't require installing plugins or add-ons.

    My guess is there are two groups who are upset about Flash being redundant. Lazy developers with deep Flash skills who need to retrain – guys, keep up with the market? And advertisers / marketing agencies who see eyeball figures decreasing for their ads, and haven't figured out yet how to deliver the same jazzy animations to their web 1.0 clients as they used to. Hint: users didn't like them anyway and they only pissed us off. Ads that don't annoy – using proven open web technologies – will be better for your clients in the long term.

    Where is the user backlash? There isn't one. Because for 90% of users video is all they care about when it comes to Flash, and HTML5 already has that covered. Just watch how many sites follow YouTube and Vimeo in offering HTML5 video over the next few months. People will surely be glad the era of flash ads polluting the web is over.

    Sorry Adobe, you bet on the wrong horse. And every time Flash crashes Chrome on my Mac, I'm glad you did.

  • MV

    The iPad isn't aimed at replacing anything, but at creating a whole new niche; a product that you never had before, and didn't realise you wanted / needed.

  • MV

    Tim, you'll be in the minority there. Dropping support for Apple's platforms is only going to hurt you as a developer in the long term. And all for the sake of tacitly supporting Adobe's all-eggs-in-one-basket business strategy. Well, good luck.

  • floatingbones

    Adobe has created a toolkit for porting Flash applications to the iPhone/iPad environment. If developers of flash games want to have their games on the iPhone/iPad, they can port them using Adobe's tools.

    This has the added benefit of compartmentalizing any inherent security problems in the Flash engine to those particular apps.

    For developers, this gives them options to monetize their games on the two platforms: they can charge for the app and also charge for additional downloads to the products. Don't people pay real $ for their virtual goat and chicken feed in farmville?

    The problem with Flash is that too many things use it. Flash was severely degrading my browsing experience until I found the flash-blocking addons to Firefox and Safari (and, hopefully soon, for Chrome). There are far less flashing and bouncing things now, and I'm consuming far less power.

  • Steve P

    I wanted an iPad to give to my son (5yrs old) as he uses my iPhone like its second nature. But I want lots of educational content for him to play with. It is however all Flash based. So I'll be waiting for a slate device with Flash support as there is no way all that content is going to get dual platformed anytime soon.

    So the iPad is a complete non starter for me, which is a shame as otherwise it would be a fabulous form factor for children and schools.

    In the meantime he gets to play on my macbook and the flash is running just fine on that. No bugs, no crashes, no performance problems. Maybe its because I'm only surfing a subset of sites and haven't let farmville etc…. onto it yet.

    Of course the macbook also has parental controls and other things that are essential for a 5yr old, that I'm guessing the iPad doesn't have. So maybe I'll just get him a cheap macbook…

    Not quite as portable but it isn't like he lugs it around anywhere, just from room to room.

  • jookyone

    Say it with me Apple Fans: APP STORE!

    This is the ONLY reason that Flash and other alternate runtimes are not allowed on their mobile devices (iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone). People who buy these devices and follow the Orwellian march of their leader barking “It's everyone else's fault” are willingly paying a premium so that they too can complain along side of him as to why the world is not built around Steve Jobs or Apple.

    Android will determine if having Flash eats into the bottom line of apps on the market… these are good times to be alive if you are a gadget guy.

  • floatingbones

    Sometimes, people make bad decisions. If that grocer is looking for the ubiquitous engine for all internet customers, Flash appears to be a poor choice. Or maybe his developers should be looking at Adobe's kit for turning Flash into an iPhone/iPod application.

    I do not like flash apps. I was shocked to learn a few months ago that businesses are [ab]using flash cookies to track customers in ways that are not permitted for web browsers. Reports that Adobe's software will become the #1 target for security exploits is another huge red flag.

    There have been all sorts of niche web engines that have gone by the wayside. Because of its negative customer experience, flash may be headed down that same path.

  • http://www.grocio.com/ Gerald Buckley

    It was a good decision. It's just a dated decision. Nothing like settling on an outdated standard for important stuff (kinda like morse code). Still serves a purpose. Just not going to be as many people enjoying it as the experience dictates different standards as time marches on.

    I'll be buying an iPad because I'm an iPhone Developer and look forward to seeing what it has to offer.

  • timothymcclanahan

    The Flash issue is only the latest straw with regards to Apple. Their ridiculous policies on trying to get something in their app store is also a huge issue. They're amazingly developer-hostile. I choose to not play that game. The more developers put up with it, the more likely they'll keep behaving badly.

  • Christopher Coulter

    A good smart business decision, would find some way to make both a win-win, while still advancing your own state-of-art, as most hardcore Appleites couldn't dare live without Photoshop or InDesign. Ticking off that key of a partner is hardly a good step, irrespective of all the personal-preferenceish 'Flash' or 'not to Flash' arguments.

  • Neil

    Sounds like I am in the minority here. But I wouldn’t even begin to consider spending $500 on an iPad or other tablet, unless it supported Flash. I am willing to let my phone live in Steve Jobs walled garden. But if I am buying a computer class product, I want more control

  • Neil

    Sounds like I am in the minority here. But I wouldn’t even begin to consider spending $500 on an iPad or other tablet, unless it supported Flash. I am willing to let my phone live in Steve Jobs walled garden. But if I am buying a computer class product, I want more control

  • floatingbones

    Please read the rest of the discussion about Adobe tools for porting Flash apps to the iPhone/iPad. If Adobe is a competent vendor, they will indeed provide an easy way for authors to move their apps to this platform. You'll be happy because you can find your apps. Authors will be happy because they can get a good return on their software with no hassle of setting up a retail presence. Folks who don't like flash (or its derivatives) will be happy because they can pick which apps they want to use.

    I have had immense problems with Flash apps crashing on my Macbook. It would regularly crash Safari; Apple seems to have finally compartmentalized Flash sufficiently to stop those from happening. Nothing has addressed the giant footprint and CPU usage of Flash and other Adobe products.

    What version of Flash are you running? Have you been vigilant keeping it up to date? What about Adobe Reader (using the same code). Look at http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-237.htm and http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-236.htm for the details.

    Do you like it when your son runs across all the flash-based advertisements? Are you pleased when they consume enough cycles to heat up your macbook and turn on the fan? Or have you started to use a flash-blocker in your browser — so you can “opt in” to only run the programs you actually want to run?

    Do the Mac's parental controls actually control anything in the flash content?