[rchaud]

Jobs' "On Flash" letter seems like aeons ago, (~10 years) but even then people were commenting on the obvious implications. It pointed to Adobe Flash apps as battery-intensive and riddled with security bugs (both correct), and proposed that native apps were the solution.

But it went one step further by providing the casus belli against the distribution of software outside of Apple's walled garden. Create something Apple didn't approve of, and you get booted. A clear break from its desktop programs, which could be freely installed from wherever.

Now the full picture is beginning to emerge. It was good going for app developers when Apple was largely a devices company, but as it moves into software and content creation/delivery, its position as marketplace gatekeeper means that everyone else will have to start paying tributes (in the form of ads, which appear above organic search results) if you don't want to end up relegated to the bottom of its search algorithm.