"Thoughts on Flash" is an

open letter An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. Open letters usually take the form of a letter addressed to an indiv ...

published by

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

, co-founder and then-chief executive officer of Apple Inc., on April 29, 2010. The letter criticizes

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...

' Flash platform and outlines reasons why the technology would not be allowed on Apple's iOS hardware products. The letter drew accusations of falsehood, hypocrisy, and ulterior motive. In retrospect many publications came to agree with Jobs.

Letter

On April 29, 2010,

, the co-founder and then-chief executive officer of Apple Inc., published an open letter called "Thoughts on Flash" explaining why Apple would not allow Flash on the iPhone,

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and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, ...

. He cited the rapid energy consumption, computer crashes, poor performance on mobile devices, abysmal security, lack of touch support, and desire to avoid "a third party layer of software coming between the platform and the developer". He touched on the idea of Flash being "open", claiming "by almost any definition, Flash is a closed system". Jobs dismissed the idea that Apple customers are missing out by being sold devices without Flash compatibility by quoting a number of statistics, concluding with "Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content."

Response

The letter drew immediate attention. In response to Jobs' accusations, Adobe's CEO

Shantanu Narayen Shantanu Narayen (born May 27, 1963) is an Indian-American business executive. He has been the chairman, president, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Adobe Inc. since December 2007. Before this, he was the company's president and chief op ...

described the open letter as an "extraordinary attack", and, during an interview with ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', called the problems mentioned by Jobs' "really a smokescreen". He further fired back at Apple, stating that computer crashes were due to Apple's operating system, and that allegations of battery drain were "patently false". Various publications had different opinions on the topic. ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...

''s Brian Chen had in a 2009 article claimed Apple would not allow Flash on the iPhone for business reasons, due to the technology being able to divert users away from the

App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...

. John Sullivan of ''

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sc ...

'' agreed with Jobs, but highlighted the hypocrisy in his reasoning, writing: "every criticism he makes of Adobe's proprietary approach applies equally to Apple". Dan Rayburn of ''

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

'' accused Steve Jobs of lying, particularly the sentiment that most content on the Internet is available in a different format. Retrospectively, more publications have agreed with Jobs. Ryan Lawler of ''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Goi ...

'' wrote in 2012 "Jobs was right", adding Android users had poor experiences with watching Flash content and interactive Flash experiences were "often wonky or didn't perform well, even on high-powered phones". Mike Isaac of ''

'' wrote in 2011 that "In urtesting of multiple Flash-compatible devices, choppiness and browser crashes were common", and a former Adobe employee stated "Flash is a resource hog ..It's a battery drain, and it's unreliable on mobile web browsers". Kyle Wagner of ''

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'' wrote in 2011 that "Adobe was never really able to smooth over performance, battery, and security issues".

iOS development

In April 2010, Apple announced changes to its iPhone Developer Agreement, with details on new developer restrictions, particularly that only apps built using "approved" programming languages would be allowed on the App Store. The change impacted a number of companies that had developed tools for

porting In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

applications from their respective languages into native iPhone apps, with the most prominent example being Adobe's "Packager for iPhone", an iOS development tool in

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at the time. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' quoted an Adobe supporter alleging the policy to be anti-competitive. On May 3, 2010, ''

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'' reported that the US

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(FTC) and the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...

(DOJ) were deciding which agency would launch an antitrust investigation into the matter. In September 2010, after having "listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart", Apple removed the restrictions on third-party tools, languages and frameworks, and again allowing the deployment of Flash applications on iOS using Adobe's iOS Packager. On November 8, 2011, Adobe announced that it was ceasing development of the Flash Player plug-in for web browsers on mobile devices, and shifting its focus toward building tools to develop applications for mobile app stores. In 2021, former Apple head of software engineering Scott Forstall said in a taped deposition in the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit that Apple had once helped Adobe try to port Flash for iPhone and iPad. Performance was "abysmal and embarrassing", and Apple never allowed Flash to be released for iOS.

End of Life of Flash

In July 2017, Adobe announced its intention to discontinue Flash (including security updates) altogether by the year 2020. As of December 31, 2020, Flash support has ended. Adobe blocked Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021.

References

External links