Apple v. Flash: A Business Perspective

Posted by Dean Hudson on
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm

There has been a lot of discussion about the somewhat blatant omission of Flash from Apple’s newly introduced tablet, the iPad. Many of the technorati see the exclusion of Flash as Apple flexing its muscle as a kingmaker. They argue that Apple is using its influence to deprecate a technology it dislikes. While there has been some interesting talk around what this means for standards, web technologies and the future of Flash in particular, people may be missing the point. Apple’s decision to not include Flash on the iPhone OS platform (also used on the iPad) is likely a business decision and not an engineering one.

Those who support the decision argue that the inclusion of Flash would make the limitations of the hardware more obvious; as a CPU hog, Flash would slow down the browsing experience of the iPhone and the iPad and drain battery life. But businesses (Apple included) make engineering trade-offs all the time. Flash’s issues in Safari hardly seem like deal breakers and would be worthwhile trade-off for the value that it brings to a media consumption platform.

I don’t think Apple decided to pick a public fight with Adobe—arguably its most valuable third-party developer—because supporting Flash was too technically challenging. Rather, it likely has to do with Apple’s relationship with the content industry. Flash is verboten on the iPhone OS for the same reason that saving MP3s is verboten. So Apple can placate content owners and maintain the viability of its iTunes business.

If Flash were enabled on the iPhone OS, how long would it take for someone to put a streaming, Flash-based player in front of a new music service? Apple is the leading retailer of music in the United States. Why should it enable competition in a business where it has no peers and on a platform it has no reason to cede? It simply doesn’t make sense for Apple to undercut its iTunes business and jeopardize its special status among content owners. It’s even possible that Apple’s agreements with rights holders expressly forbid it.

If user experience were the sole consideration, I’m sure Apple would gladly provide a Flash-enabled browser. While Apple may have some valid engineering concerns, they strike me as a convenient cover. Disabling Flash helps Apple control content on the platform by forcing it through iTunes or other approved software. This has to be clear to a firm who’s CEO sits on the board at Disney.

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5 Comments, Comment or Ping

Margery Nabors

Regardless of the present-day rationale for not enabling Flash on the iPhone OS, I contend that Apple will include a stripped version in the next year!

As devices running the iPhone OS such as the iPad become peoples’ primary computer for browsing, they will need Flash to deliver on the promise of offering “the best web experience [they've] ever had.” The truth is, Flash is needed to browse the WHOLE web. In a survey of 3.5 million pages, the Opera (browser) developer center found that “somewhere between 30% and 40% of all pages tested contained Flash files.” That number soars to nearly 85% when only the “top sites” were surveyed, according to the Adobe CTO.

Yes, I understand the current iPhone Developers’ TOS prohibit the use of Flash but that is because it is evolved to be a multimedia platform that can run a myriad of applications in and of itself. Thus it would divert business from the App Store and iTunes Store, as you keenly asserted in your post. However, if there was a stripped version of Flash that didn’t so dramatically undercut Apple’s control of the software, then it may (and will) become a reality for hardware running the iPhone OS.

Feb 9th, 2010
Seth Foley

“But businesses (Apple included) make engineering trade-offs all the time. Flash’s issues in Safari hardly seem like deal breakers and would be worthwhile trade-off for the value that it brings to a media consumption platform.”

This is incorrect. As noted in a previous post, there’s multiple problems with Flash that could preclude its use on a mobile platform:

- Security problems
- Stability problems
- Power consumption

Taken separately, it is possible that one of these would be considered an acceptable issue: after all, the iPhone 3G presented consumers with a faster processor at the cost of battery life (since remedied, partially, in the 3GS.) However, together they form a pretty significant roadblock to widespread adoption of Flash on a mobile platform.

The security issue is perhaps the most salient, as Apple cannot hope to screen websites for malicious Flash content and thus is forced to rely on a third-party company for updates to protect against user-generated content. On the desktop, users have other tools to avoid malicious content, but this is not necessarily the case for mobile devices. As such, the iPhone developer agreement does not allow the use of emulators, and Flash certainly qualifies. As anyone who waited for a native OS X version of Photoshop knows, Adobe rarely moves fast, so it is unlikely Apple would opt to depend on Adobe’s good behavior where its security reputation is concerned.

To address the option of a “stripped-down” version, this is unlikely for compatibility reasons. For a simple comparison, note the experience of web browsing on an early BlackBerry product: in simplifying the content by restricting what did and did not work on the mobile device, it caused users to simply not use the feature. In practice, the problem of incompatibility (which is a given, no matter how limited the plugin would be) would cause more negative than positive experiences. We all know which ones get more press!

Finally, one of the other arguments against having Flash on a mobile computer is the simplified forms of supported input. Given that the iPad does not (currently) support secondary input devices, a user is necessarily limited to only the “click” action. Many, if not most, Flash movies rely heavily on mouseover, mouseout, and other events to function correctly — and there is no elegant way to translate these events when one’s only tool is a human finger.

Feb 9th, 2010
Jon Hickey

In response to:

“Apple is the leading retailer of music in the United States. Why should it enable competition in a business where it has no peers and on a platform it has no reason to cede?”

I disagree this is a motivation for Apple. They have allowed Rhapsody, Last.fm, and Pandora to make apps on the iPhone. They clearly aren’t worried about streaming music through flash since people are already streaming it through apps.

I think the biggest reason is they want to push the use of html 5 so people start using Quicktime for video delivery instead of Flash.

Feb 10th, 2010
Kathy Gill

Flash is verboten on the iPhone OS for the same reason that saving MP3s is verboten. So Apple can placate content owners and maintain the viability of its iTunes business.

According to the developer community, Apple doesn’t support Flash inside Safari on the iPhone because, among other reasons, Flash is a processor hog (and thus battery drain). I believe that Flash has limited support on other smartphones as well.

Feb 10th, 2010
Doug Wilcox

Whatever the reason, it’s astonishing to have a consumer device that doesn’t support most animated web pages. I predict Apple will “patch” the ipad soon after launch with Flash support while it builds the html5 install base.

Mar 9th, 2010