Thoughts on Flash
Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.
I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.
First, there’s “Open”.
Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.
Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.
Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.
Second, there’s the “full web”.
Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.
Another Adobe claim is that Apple devices cannot play Flash games. This is true. Fortunately, there are over 50,000 games and entertainment titles on the App Store, and many of them are free. There are more games and entertainment titles available for iPhone, iPod and iPad than for any other platform in the world.
Third, there’s reliability, security and performance.
Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.
In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath. Who knows how it will perform?
Fourth, there’s battery life.
To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.
Although Flash has recently added support for H.264, the video on almost all Flash websites currently requires an older generation decoder that is not implemented in mobile chips and must be run in software. The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.
When websites re-encode their videos using H.264, they can offer them without using Flash at all. They play perfectly in browsers like Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome without any plugins whatsoever, and look great on iPhones, iPods and iPads.
Fifth, there’s Touch.
Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?
Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.
Sixth, the most important reason.
Besides the fact that Flash is closed and proprietary, has major technical drawbacks, and doesn’t support touch based devices, there is an even more important reason we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. We have discussed the downsides of using Flash to play video and interactive content from websites, but Adobe also wants developers to adopt Flash to create apps that run on our mobile devices.
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. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.
This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may not adopt enhancements from one platform unless they are available on all of their supported platforms. Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms.
Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.
Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance the platform so developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications. Everyone wins – we sell more devices because we have the best apps, developers reach a wider and wider audience and customer base, and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.
Conclusions.
Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.
The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.
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.
Steve Jobs
April, 2010
S・ジョブズ氏、「Flash」に対する考えを公開書簡で明らかに
文：David Meyer（ZDNet UK）
翻訳校正：編集部
2010/04/30 07:36
UPDATE Appleの最高経営責任者（CEO）Steve Jobs氏は米国時間4月29日、同社ウェブサイトに掲載された公開書簡で、開発プラットフォーム「Flash」を激しく批判した。
Jobs氏は、次の6つの点において、Flashを批判した。つまり、オープン性、「フルウェブ「full web）」、信頼性とセキュリティとパフォーマンス、バッテリ寿命、タッチ互換性、そして、Flashのクロスプラットフォームツールとしての性質についてである。AdobeとAppleの間には、「iPhone」「iPod」「iPad」へのFlashの搭載をAppleが拒絶したことを最大の要因として、長期にわたって論争が繰り広げられており、Jobs氏の今回の長い公開書簡は、その最新ラウンドである。
Jobs氏はこの投稿の中で、Appleがこれらの端末においてFlashを禁止する理由に関するAdobeの主張を否定した。
「Adobeは、われわれの決断は、主にビジネス上の理由に基づくものであり、われわれが『App Store』を保護したいと考えているからだと述べている。しかし実際には、技術的な問題に基づく判断である。Adobeは、われわれが閉じたシステムであり、Flashはオープンだと主張しているが、実際にはその逆が正しい」と同氏は述べた。
Jobs氏は、AdobeのFlash製品は、「完全にAdobeの管理下にあり、Adobeからしか入手することができない」ため、「100％プロプライエタリである」と述べた。そして同氏は、Appleの「iPhone OS」もそれ自体はプロプライエタリであることを認めたが、「ウェブに関係するすべての標準は、オープンであるべきだ」というAppleの信念を強調した。
「Appleは、Flashを使用する代わりに、HTML 5、CSS、JavaScriptを採用している。これらはすべてオープン標準である」とJobs氏は記している。「Appleのモバイル端末はすべて、これらのオープン標準を高性能かつ低消費電力に実装して出荷している」（Jobs氏）。また同氏は、Appleによるレンダリングエンジン「WebKit」の促進は、同社が「ウェブ向けのオープン標準を構築している」ことの表れであると付け加えた。
次に同氏は、Appleのモバイル端末を使用するユーザーはウェブ動画の75％を視聴できておらず、それはこれらの動画がFlashだからだというAdobeの主張について、反論した。Adobeでは、これらの動画がFlashであるためであることを理由に挙げている。「それらの動画のほとんどすべてが、より現代的なフォーマットであるH.264でも提供されており、iPhone、iPod、iPadで視聴できるという点に、彼らは言及していない」と同氏は記し、H.264によるエンコーディングが普及していることは、Appleの顧客が視聴できない動画は「それほど多くない」ことを表していると主張した。
「またわれわれは、Flashが、Macのクラッシュの第1の原因であることを知っている」とJobs氏は続けた。「Adobeとともにこの問題の修正に取り組んでいるが、もう数年間も解決されないままだ。Flashを追加することによって、iPhone、iPod、iPadの信頼性とセキュリティを低下させたくはない」（Jobs氏）
続いて同氏は、Flashは「モバイル端末での性能が高くない」と述べた。これは、Adobeが2010年の「Flash 10.1」で対応する予定だと述べている問題である。Googleは既に、iPhoneの競合製品である同社の「Android」プラットフォームでFlashの新バージョンをサポートする契約を交わしている。しかしJobs氏は書簡で、新バージョンも性能が高くない可能性があると指摘した。
「Adobeは、2009年初頭にFlashがスマートフォンに搭載されると正式に発表した後、2009年後半、2010年前半と延期した挙句、現在では2010年後半と述べている」とJobs氏は述べた。「いつかは出荷されるのだろうが、かたずをのんで待っていなくてよかったと思っている。どの程度の性能が実現されるかは誰にもわからない」（Jobs氏）
続いてJobs氏は、Flashがほとんどすべてのウェブ動画に対しソフトウェアベースのデコーディングを必要とする点を批判した。同氏によると、これにより再生時の消費電力が2倍になるという。また同氏は、Flashは「マウスを使うPC向けに設計されており、指を使うタッチスクリーン向けではない」と述べた。
同氏は、Adobeの開発ツールが複数のプラットフォーム向けに設計されている点についても不満を述べた。「われわれは、過去の苦い経験から、プラットフォームと開発者の間にソフトウェアのサードパーティーレイヤを配置すると、最終的には標準に満たないアプリケーションが作成され、プラットフォームの拡張と発展が妨げられることを知っている」と同氏は述べた。
「サードパーティーが開発したライブラリやツールに開発者が依存しているならば、サードパーティーが新機能を採用することにした場合にのみ、開発者はプラットフォームの拡張点を利用することができる（中略）サードパーティーがクロスプラットフォームの開発ツールを提供している場合は、さらに問題は深刻になる。1つのプラットフォームが拡張されても、サードパーティーは、サポートするすべてのプラットフォームでそれが提供されるまで、その拡張点を採用しないかもしれない」と同氏は付け加えた。
Jobs氏は、「動画の視聴や、任意のウェブコンテンツの利用に対し、Flashはもはや必要ではない」と主張して投稿を締めくくっている。
「HTML 5など、モバイル時代に構築された新しいオープン標準が、モバイル端末に（そしてPCにおいても）適したものとなるだろう」と同氏は述べた。「おそらくAdobeは、過去からの脱却を図るAppleを批判するのはほどほどにして、将来に向けて優れたHTML 5ツールの構築に注力するべきではないだろうか」（Jobs氏）
