I feel like Apple has taken a beating in the blogosphere over their lack of inclusion of Flash in their iPhone OS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). I’m here to defend their decision.
There is a certain tone and tenor to most blog posts who are against Apple’s decisions. They seem to all say some of the same things. There seems to be two crowds here. The “flash is ubiquitous, therefore you should support it” crowd. And there’s the “Apple has no right to control what goes on my device” crowd . Here’s my response to both crowds.
Having been a Mac OSX user for over two years right now I can tell you, flat out, Flash on Mac OSX is terrible. Patently, patently terrible. It’s a resource hog. It’s a powerhog on my MacBook. And it’s buggy as all get out. And I experience this on high quality, high viewership sites.
Flash is ubiquitous, you say. I need it on my (fill in Apple OS device here)! True, flash is ubiquitous. But why? The fact is one large need for Flash can really be traced back to IE’s dominance in the late 90′s and early 00′s. Internet Explorer set the web back many, many years. IE was slow to adopt new standards, and the ones they did adopt were often implemented poorly. However, Flash also did fill holes that web standards didn’t really have the capability to implement. Among them are: Site animations and interactivity, web video, and Flash specific applications, be they games, uploaders, etc. HTML 5 and Javascript (including open source JS libraries like JQuery, JQueryUI et al) are allowing developers to easily add slick animations, transitions, and awesome functionality to their UI’s without using Flash. HTML 5 also now has really slick support for video and audio. And, as far as Web “applications” are concerned, well on mobile devices native App’s are boss, leaving that last segment unnecessary for someone like Apple and the iPhone OS. All told Apple’s bet on HTML5 and JavaScript to provide the functionality and user interfaces that users have come to expect is smart, savvy, and feeds right into their “just works” mantra. Apple customers have come to expect to be able to open up their browser and watch a web video. When Flash underwhelms on Mac OSX the general public doesn’t say “man, Flash really sucks on Mac” they say “My Apple computer doesn’t allow me to watch web videos.”
There are very real growing pains however. Right now for Apple, the Flash problem is a real problem. It’s going to take a while for the general public to update their browsers to HTML 5 browsers, and even those browsers that do fall into that category, their support still isn’t where it can, and needs to be. So while the first, second, and maybe even third generation of (say) the iPad will experience some severe growing pains, Apple betting on open standards is definitely understandable and an incredibly smart bet. Not only for the end user, who will have an experience based on open standards, but for a developer as well. The fact is, it’s not cheap developing in Flash. It costs anywhere between $500 and $2000 to own all the Adobe software you need to properly develop in Flash (note I said properly. Yes there are other IDE’s out there, but they’re nowhere near Adobe’s). Everytime the IDE changes, and a new CS release happens, you have to re-up on that investment. For those who want to develop using open standards, that cost is zero. Zilch. Nadda. It costs NOTHING for developers to program using open standards. But developers experience growing pains too. Sure, they can go HTML5 and JS but, what happens when 70% of their site’s traffic is using IE6? Or FF2? Flash, for now, does provide great cross-platform convenience, but how long should this go on? In Apple’s mind, the time is now. And oh, they’re carrying an installed base of 70 million users. So those worrying about market share, well Apple is already making a convincing case there.
Of course there’s that other crowd. That crowd that screams “Apple shouldn’t have control over my body device! I should get to choose!” Well, Apple DOES have control over your device, period. And in doing so, it’s a consumer friendly and smart move. They want their devices TO WORK. Again, Apple lives by the mantra “It just works.” Let’s be clear here friends, Adobe has yet to ship a clear, good, and reasonable full mobile version of Flash. Apple already sees the miserable performance of Flash on Mac OSX and they’re simply saying “No, our consumer laptops and desktops can handle this, but our mobile devices can’t.” And I think it’s absolutely the right move. It’s annoying when Flash causes a browser crash in OSX, it’s going to be downright maddening when it brings down your entire phone OS. Ultimately no one is FORCING you to buy an Apple iPhone. Or an iPad. Or an iPod Touch. If you don’t like Apple’s decision, then let your money do the talking. But don’t claim this is about openness, because it’s simply smoke and mirrors. Web standards are open, paying a company hundreds of dollars to develop on their platform every 3 years IS NOT OPEN. Period. Apple is not saying “we don’t want users to view web videos on our device” That would be closed. They’re saying “when a user views a web video on our device, we want it to be a seamless customer experience”
And you know what, Apple has every right to do that. As designer, developer, and producer of the hardware they’re well within their creative right to decide what can get baked into their OS. They also have the market and intellectual capital to make this decision as well. Let’s face it, I think most people in the blogospehere have a short term memory what cell phones were like before the iPhone revolution. Do you remember trying to get on the internet via your phone? No? You couldn’t? Well do you at least remember what it was like to do simple tasks, like syncing your contacts to your computer? Couldn’t do that either?
The fact is Apple was the first one to do mobile browsing correctly. I trust that that is what guides this decision, and I fully support it. Deal with the growing pains now, and the mobile web will be better for it.