Interesting Differences of Opinion on Flash
Like a lot of the Mac Faithful, I've been watching the discussions about Flash on the iPhone, and now the iPad, with interest and a little bit of a foot in both camps. There's a strictly technical viewpoint to think about, and then there's the reality when multi-billion dollar companies get involved.
From a technical standpoint, Wil Shipley said it best in this series of tweets:
Honestly, I don't understand Flash-haters. It's a content type. It's prevalent. The iPhone and iPad should understand it.
Want to know what we did at Omni when there wasn't a flash player for Rhapsody? WE WROTE OUR OWN FLASH PLAYER. It's not that hard.
Apple: Get off your ass and write a minimal Flash player. Everyone else: Stop acting like not being able to see video is cool.
And yet, the counter argument is valid as well: that anything controlled by one company (Adobe) can't be a real "standard" for the web as it's possible that it could be modified/licensed/changed by the company for their own commercial goals, and that's not something that should be supported and encouraged.
Wil is right - Apple could solve all this by putting in a Flash player into QuickTime. But then is that really in Apple's best (commercial) interests? Probably not. Then when Adobe changes, Apple has to change to keep "compatible". That is putting Apple in a constant game of catch-up. Not a great place to be. And then there's the legal angle. Say they did this, and then Adobe came after them. It's Adobe's property, after all, and while there's an open source Flex compiler, there's a lot that's missing from that project as well.
It's a battle of Titans, and we're pawns in this game. They are far more interested in control than they are in the customers. If Apple really wanted to make folks happy they'd work with Adobe to make Flash supported in QuickTime. Easy. But that means someone has to "flinch" first. Apple? Not likely. Adobe? Can't see that, either. But it would be pretty easy to clear this up.
On the other hand, it wouldn't bother me a bit of Flash became a niche player. Sure, there will be folks that will use it, but again, if it's below 80%, then it's just another plugin system. There will have to be others supported by the developers. Like YouTube's HTML5 video. Things like this will move in to create open alternatives to Flash.
So it wouldn't be horrible if the stand-off continued and HTML5, and it's successors, made Flash something less than a defacto standard. But then again, it's just a content type, after all... just support it, Apple... Or Perian... Someone.