[FanIn80]

I'm sorry, but this is not a business decision. I know it's the new, cool thing to hate and distrust Apple, but there is solid, factual evidence that supports their claims of Flash being outdated and blocking progress. On top of that factual evidence, we have other companies like Microsoft and Opera coming out in support of the same comments Apple made (although, a bit more friendly about it).

I'm just unwilling to accept the "Apple just wants to make money" argument. It's nothing more than a cop out. Maybe a smokescreen at best. If anything, they stand to loose a lot of money on their stance. There are a LOT of Mac users who are also Adobe users. These people rely on Adobe products in order to do their jobs, and they wouldn't hesitate to buy a PC instead of a Mac, if Adobe ever pulled the plug on their Mac support.

So, putting that nonsense aside, and looking at the real aspects of this issue...


The technological landscape is shifting towards handheld, lightweight devices.

Look at the last 5 years. We saw desktop sales give way to laptop sales. Then we saw laptop sales give way to netbook sales. Now we're seeing netbook sales give way to (whatever new category the iPad represents) sales.

Flash was great, but it's served its purpose. It's part of the old desktop world, and while it made the transition to laptops, it barely made the transition to netbooks. It won't make the transition to handhelds, because they just don't have the hardware to support it. I'm not talking about processing power here. I'm talking about battery life, security and reliability.

The way these new devices are being used in our lives, we can't allow for huge power drains or security issues or even random crashes. When I pull my cell phone out, I need it to do it's job. I don't want to sit there and troubleshoot something just so I can make a phone call. I also want to know that if I'm phoning the bank, there isn't some unknown security hole on my phone sending all my key-presses off to someone's remote database. Lastly, I can't be plugging it in every 4 hours to recharge it.

HTML5 does everything Flash can do, but it does it using considerably less power, with considerably less security risks and considerably less crashing.

While it's nice to see some devices coming out that are making a big deal about supporting Flash, and I have no doubt they'll make a pile of money off of people who think they're missing something without it, at the end of the day these devices are causing more damage than good.

What's going to happen if people start buying an Android tablet with Flash, only to discover for themselves the very thing that's already been mentioned? They're going to do the same thing people always do... they're going to say that "all tablets suck because they are unsecure, have lousy batteries and don't work properly."

Instead of encouraging companies to try to force proprietary 3rd-party interpreters (like Flash) onto these new devices, we should be encouraging companies to adopt the new, open standards that have been designed with these very devices in mind. We should also be encouraging web developers to move forward using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript... and, lastly, we should be encouraging Adobe to replace their Flash application with a new development tool that allows people to develop using these new open standards.

PS: I know Adobe is starting to add H.264 support to Flash, but there are other reasons for it not being adaptable to new devices. Mouseover vs touch is one example.

Anyway, this is just how I see things.