Notes

Thoughts on Flash

Steve Jobs has penned a lengthy missive outlining Apple’s – or, one suspects more accurately, Mr Jobs’ – Thoughts on Flash.

Justifying the thinking behind the company’s decision not to allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads (and coming at a time when the relationship between Apple and Adobe is, to say the least, strained) the piece touches on a number of interesting themes and is well worth reading in its entirety.

Jobs’ reasoning falls under six key areas: openness; the ‘full web’; issues of reliability, security and performance; the importance of considering battery life in a growing mobile environment; the growing reliance on touch interfaces; and, last, but not least the fact that, as Jobs puts it, “We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform.”

An impassioned, yet reasoned piece, Jobs’ conclusion is hard to fault:

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Forceful words indeed, and a response from Adobe will doubtless follow. What that response is, and how it is measured, will make equally interesting reading.

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In addition to their role as lecturers in interactive design at the University of Ulster at Belfast, where they have been active in promoting a web standards-based curriculum, Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson are practicing designers and digital artists. Their work has featured in a variety of design books and magazines alongside numerous internationally respected designers and they are regular speakers at design conferences and workshops worldwide.

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