Ex-Genius

Why You Can Expect To NEVER See Flash on iPhone OS

I’m sure it’s something you’ve cursed Apple’s name for not adding with each update to iPhone OS. It’s an addition to your iPhone or iPod touch that would “complete” the device in your opinion. Yet, with each additional OS update (or product), Adobe’s Flash technology is missing. There’s a reason for this.

Flash is buggy. Really buggy. It’s the number one reason a Mac will crash, and the number one reason Safari will unexpectedly quit. TUAW also reports on a bug that is sixteen months old. SIXTEEN months. That is an unacceptable amount of time to fix an outstanding bug within software. Imagine if Apple released an update to iPhone OS, and it contained a bug that erased all of your contacts every time you ended a call. Imagine if they didn’t fix that bug for over TWO years. This is exactly why Apple does not add Flash support to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Apple is a company that thrives it’s software on 3 things: Usability, simplicity and stability. One line that Steve Jobs uses in every keynote address is “it just works”. They have a constant demand that their products are very stable. Even though they can’t really control what gets developed for the Mac by third party developers, they sure can and always will with their mobile devices. It’s all about the experience to Apple, and poorly managed software like Flash will hurt that experience. Working for Apple at it’s Genius Bars, people literally lose faith in a product very quickly, even an Apple one, from software related issues. Apple is just making it’s products as best it can, not only to sell more of them, but to keep customers in the long run.

So instead Apple has adopted HTML5. HTML5 allows for the same experience you get from Flash, but that doesn’t require a plug-in installed into a browser to get the same results. The internet will and already has started to adopt HTML5. Flash is on the out, as weird as that sounds. Its an age-old technology that even YouTube and Vimeo has begun to move on from. They have already turned on HTML5 video tags.

What Apple learned from the Jailbroken iPhone OS scene

Well now. Don’t these two images look similar? On the left, we have the newly announced Apple iPad. On our right, a Jailbroken iPhone. It seems to me that as much as Apple despises Jailbreaking the overly controlled iPhone OS, they have gotten many ideas from those pesky-brilliant hackers. Some quick thoughts on ideas Apple borrowed from the jailbreak scene:

1. 3rd Party App Developers. This is probably the biggest and most recognizable one. In 2007, when Apple first announced the iPhone, it did not want 3rd party apps on the iPhone. Apple employees were even trained to defend Apples views at the time on open app development for the platform. Apple’s original solution were web apps. Remember those? What a horrid solution. And I think Apple finally realized this. The Jailbreakers changed all of this, because so many people were hacking their iPhones at the time to allow 3rd party apps. Without them, there might have never been anything other than web apps for the iPhone. Seriously.
2. Video recording. Apple added a video camera in their 3rd generation iPhone 3GS. This feature however, was almost available from the very beginning of Jailbroken iPhones. One that was widely used by the good ol’ ‘crazy ones, misfits’ that Apple today alienates.
3. Direct Podcast downloading. One feature I wanted in the iPhone from the first day I owned one in June of 2007. The option to download podcasts straight to the iPhone without having to sync with iTunes. “Syncing”, is becoming more and more of a thing of the past. The only real reason to sync anymore, is to backup your settings, or to sync your pirated music. [Don’t lie to me]
4. Copy and Paste. Another feature widely used by the Jailbroken scene, copy and paste is something we definitely take for granted, until we don’t have it. I will admit however, that Apple did it best.
5. Custom backgrounds behind the home screen. Oh ye who use Winterboard, rejoice! You can finally turn off one feature of the most used Jailbroken app when iPhone OS 3.2 comes to iPhone and iPod touch. Using your own wallpaper in place of the black void that was the home screen in the past.
6. Tethering. Something us Americans still don’t (legitimately) have. Thanks AT&T. But at leasts its built-in to iPhone OS.

Well there you have it. What feature from jailbroken iPhones will Apple take next? A Categorize system for apps? We will only see!